Category Archives: Arts and Entertainment

A Brown Girl in Italy

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My book tour is (mostly) over. But I wanted to share a little bit about what it was like in one of the most exciting spots I hit: Torino, Italy. I traveled there for four days in mid-May, for the Torino book festival, where I spent most of my time hanging out with Tahmima Anam, the author of A Golden Age.ItalianTV2.jpg

Tahmima and I have the same fab Italian publisher, Garzanti, and the same fab editor, Elisabetta. Getting to know Tahmima was unexpected and awesome! She is one of the nicest and funniest people I met on tour—and she was also generous with her advice. I am reading her book now, and it’s fantastic. (Previous Sepia coverage here.) Anyway, she’s also a Sepia reader, and when I told her I wanted to blog about our time in Italy, she readily agreed.

We spent a fair amount of time giving interviews. As far as Tahmima and I could tell, there were four female South Asian authors at the Torino festival. It took hardly a moment before someone wanted all four of us in the same spot. Two of us wore saris. Nope, it was the other two.

Left to right: Tahmima Anam, Sunny Singh, Stefano Bortolussi, Selina Sen, and me.

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The Rabbi Shergill Experience

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Three years ago, Indian singer-songwriter Rabbi Shergill exploded on the Indian alternative pop scene with “Bulla Ki Jaana,” a distinctively spiritual — and yet extremely catchy — hit single. The song was unusual because it took the words of the Sufi poet Bulleh Shah, and gave them a modern context. And Rabbi Shergill was himself unusual (even in India) to be a turbaned, unshorn Sikh, making a claim on popular music with a sound that has nothing in common, whatsoever, with Bhangra. From my point of view Rabbi has been a welcome presence on many levels — most of all, I would say, because he seems to aspire to a kind of seriousness and thoughtfulness in the otherwise craptastic landscape of today’s filmi music (think “Paisa Paisa” from “Apna Sapna Money Money”; or better yet, don’t don’t).

After a few years of silence (disregarding, for the moment, his contribution to the film Delhi Heights), Rabbi finally has a follow-up album, Avengi Ja Nahin (which would be “Ayegi Ya Nahin” if the song were in Hindi). The album is available at the Itunes store — so if you’re thinking of getting it, it should be easy enough to resist the temptation to download it illegally off the internets.

The video for the first single, “Avengi Ja Nahin”, can be found on YouTube:

I’m personally not that excited about it. The good part is, Rabbi has moved away from his earlier image as a kind of Sufi/Sikh spiritualist, and is here singing about a much more earthly kind of longing (i.e., for a girl: “Cut the crap/ Will you come or not? / Shade my face with your tresses/ Will you or not?”). But the bad part is, the song just isn’t that exciting.

Fortunately, the rest of the album has some much more provocative material.

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M.I.A. Performs Her Last Show to Hippies

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I remember the year I went to the Bonnaroo Music Festival. It was the summer of 2004, and I was trying to register people there to vote. Trying because getting people that are high registered to vote was really tough. I remember that I felt like I was the only brown girl in a sea of hippy-dippies. MIA Image.jpg

If only I would have gone this year. I would have definitely seen another brown person.

“This is my last show,” the rapper M.I.A. announced from the stage of That Tent, “and I’m glad I’m spending it with all my hippies.” If, as she announced at least three times, it was M.I.A.’s last gig ever, she went out with a boom….For her finale, “Paper Planes,” the audience that spilled far outside the tent pumped fists happily at the gunshot sounds that are also one of the song’s hooks. “Thanks for coming to my last gig,” she said, amid noise that continued well after she was gone. [NewYorkTimes]

Is this the end of M.I.A.? Will she actually retire, or will she retire the way Jay-Z retired and be back within another year with a new album? She did cancel her European tour so maybe this was just the residual effect of that? Or maybe she simply doesn’t like touring?

M.I.A. never liked touring that much, anyway: “I’m an artist and it’s really difficult when you become the art, and you’re like, ‘Look at me!’ every day,” she explained. “I was never supposed to be like that. I’m eight things [painter, film director, musician, etc.], and I’ve figured out that you can get pleasure from being all of them, and that’s great. But I don’t want to be the thing. And that’s what touring is.”[Paste]

Or maybe it’s because M.I.A. got engaged last month and she’s feeling like she needs to settle down…

M.I.A. announced to her audience in Edmonton, Canada that she’s engaged! Not only that, but her beau-to-be comes from an “affluent” Montreal family. Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam agreed to marry Benjamin Brewer, the frontman/vocalist/guitarist for Exit and son of Warner Music Group’s chairman and CEO, Edgar Bronfman Jr.[MOG]

Is this a green card marriage or the real deal? Last year when I saw M.I.A. she kept talking about how she needed to get married so she could stay in the States. But then, why would she marry a Canadian?

Will M.I.A. retire? Will this be a love marriage for M.I.A.? Will she get kicked out of the U.S. for an expired Visa? Or is this all a part of her turning 30 meltdown? Only time will tell in the saga of M.I.A…. Continue reading →

Law & Order: Sri Lankan Episode?

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Mutiny! I haven’t been around so much lately. My chronically bad hands hit a bad spot right before I started traveling for book promotion in April. When I returned, the SAJA Convention was waiting. These things were fun, but I’ll admit that I missed the Mutiny somethin’ turrible. I have quite a backlog of posts I’ve been meaning to write. So I am glad glad glad to be back. (Thanks to all those Mutineers who said hey at various readings! It was nice to meet you.)

I had a first-post-back all ready, and then I started getting e-mails from Sri Lankan pals and journos. They said: Did you know that there is a Sri Lankan-themed episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent? Indeed, I did not. It first aired on Sunday, on USA Network, and I missed it. Fortunately, it will be aired again tonight, at 11 p.m. So a heads-up to all those of you who might be interested. I’ll update this post with my thoughts after I watch it. (It’s Season 7, Episode 14, entitled “Assassin.”) There will be a few repeats this week.

UPDATE: 10:26 p.m. For entertainment value, I’m actually going to try to live-blog this. Incidentally, have just seen “Get Smart,” which has The Great Khali in a key role.

Live blog below.

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Just some kids

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Despite the central air in my apartment, last night was one of those nights when it was cooler outside than in. Because I live on the ground floor, I can’t leave my windows open while I’m out, and it gets stuffy sometimes. I threw open the windows, had dinner, and sat down in my favorite chair with my laptop in my lap.

All of a sudden, I heard voices yelling, screaming, somewhere really close, like my apartment had been broken into. I pushed the laptop aside, jumped up and scanned the room, startled, my heart racing, totally confused.

Then I heard racial epithets (fucking Bin Laden terrorist, etc), and laughter. Two white teenagers (in this town I’ve only encountered racist hostility from white folks, but that’s a matter of a whole nother post) had snuck up to my open windows, yelled, and run away. I hadn’t seen them because my lights were on and it was dark outside.

I walked up to my windows, cussed the kids out, slammed the windows shut and glowered, my tranquility disturbed, my sense of safety in my own home penetrated.

I remembered that, whenever I had lived on the first floor in the past, one roomate always kept a baseball bat handy to … repell unwanted visitors.

That was the end of the incident. It wasn’t a hate crime, I didn’t feel threatened or menaced, nothing really bad happened. It was just some high-spirited teenagers out for some racist fun. Still, it might be prudent to keep a bat around.

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Are you feeling lucky?

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First reported by High Heel Confidential (thanks Nirvana), the Google Ooogle Sari is here. It’s produced by designer Satya Paul (you can see his URL in the URL bar of the browser), as part of his “inspirational series 3 – pop art” (Thanks Bloog). This is the promotional copy attached:

Oogle
Georgette jacquard printed sari along with unstitched blouse piece attached.

Inspirational Series 3 – Pop Art
“Starting in the 50’s, Pop art is a reflection of popular culture in art. Pop art is neither praise nor condemnation but explores the everyday imagery that is so much a part of contemporary consumer culture. It often uses media, advertising, packaging, celebrity and comic book art styles to bring art closer to real life.” [Link]

The sari sells for Rs. 11,995.00/ USD. 299.88 and has now been spotted in a mall in Gurgaon:

Spotted this in a fancy mall in Gurgaon, India (the tech hub south of Delhi). I don’t know the backstory, and I couldn’t find out because (proving that India is aspiring to Western standards in every way!) a guard started rushing over to bust me for taking pictures. [Link]

This latter part cracks me up — was the guard protecting the intellectual property involved here? Afraid that somebody would take the photo and use it to create a copy of the sari more cheaply?

While I’m generally a traditionalist, I see the potential in this sort of printed sari. Do you think it will catch on? Will there be more logo branded saris in the future? Or perhaps saris that use text as decoration – after all, search results (and sponsored links in particular) are kind of boring. One could do far better if you want to invite somebody over to (ahem) deconstruct your text.

Finally – how long until somebody wears this to Google’s own offices? (I’ve got a friend who works at one of the Delhi area offices as a programmer, I should ask him if he’s spotted it yet)

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Leaving Uganda

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We’ve talked about it here before: In 1972, Idi Amin gave all 80,000 Asian Indians living in the Uganda 90 days to pack up and leave. As the BBC reported on August 7, 1972, “Asians, who are the backbone of the Ugandan economy, have been living in the country for more than a century. But resentment against them has been building up within Uganda’s black majority. General Amin has called the Asians “bloodsuckers” and accused them of milking the economy of its wealth.”

A new young adult novel Child of Dandelions by Canadian author Shenaaz Nanji sheds much needed light on the upheaval of Asian Indians in Uganda. It’s worth checking out, even if you don’t have a young adult in your household, or don’t normally pick up books for younger readers. dandelions.jpg

The protagonist of Child of Dandelions is fifteen year old Sabine, a girl whose comfortable life is torn asunder on August 6, 1972, the day that Idi Amin issues his expulsion order for all Indians in Uganda. Shaken by the protests she walks into while window shopping in Little India, Sabine turns to her parents for protection.

Sabine’s mother is afraid and eager to leave Uganda, but her father, a wealthy Ismaeli businessman and landowner, is determined to ignore Dada Amin’s orders:

“Nonsense!” Papa laughed his conch-shell laugh, and her little brother echoed it. … “We are even more Ugandan than the ethnic Africans. Not only were we born here, but we chose to be Ugandan citizens when other Indians remained British…

Sabine agrees with her father. She is different after all. Her best friend Zena is African. They’ve grown up together like “twin beans of one coffee flower” and Zena is just like her sister, even if others (like her Indian friends) don’t see it that way.

Narmin …Nasrin … Sabine’s hands clenched at the names of her classmates. They were prissy prunes. She’d had a big fight with them after they called Zena goli. Mixing her African and Indian friends was like mixing oil with water.

As the 90 day countdown continues, Sabine’s optimism is drowned out by the growing chants of “Muhindi, nenda nyumbani! Indian, go home.” Amidst reports of violent attacks against Indian families, the mysterious disappearance of her favorite uncle, and strained relations between her and Zena (whose uncle is a general and crony of Idi Amin), she is forced to reexamine her understandings of race and class.

The novel is what Nanji calls Faction, a mix of facts and fiction. Continue reading →

“Indian Nonsense”

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I came across an anthology called The Tenth Rasa: An Anthology of Indian Nonsense, while browsing in a bookstore in suburban Philadelphia. The book is a collection of nonsensical poems and short stories from all over India, most of them translated into English. It’s one of those rare Penguin India titles that ended up getting distributed in the U.S. (An earlier book that I discovered in exactly the same way, was Samit Basu’s The Simoqin Prophecies. Also, I should point out that the editors of The Tenth Rasa have started a blog to promote the book.)

I’ll say a bit more about the idea behind the collection below, but what I have in mind for this post is a celebration of nonsense by example, not so much a thorough review (I’m also curious to know whether readers can remember their own South Asian nonsense rhymes, in any language. Anyone? Translations would be nice, but not required).

For now it might make sense to start with a couple of poems. First, the spirit of the collection is perhaps best captured by a favorite Sukumar Ray poem, “Abol Tabol,” (translated alternatively as “Gibberish” or “Gibberish Gibberish” to catch the reduplication), first published in Ray’s book of the same title in 1923:

Come happy fool whimsical cool
Come dreaming dancing fancy-free,
Come mad musician glad glusician
Beating your drum with glee.
Come O come where mad songs are sung
Without any meaning or tune,
Come to the place where without a trace
Your mind floats off like a loon.
Come scatterbrain up tidy lane
Wake, shake and rattle ‘n roll,
Come lawless creatures with willful features
Each unbound and clueless soul.
Nonsensical ways topsy-turvy gaze
Stay delirious all the time,
So come you travelers to the world of babblers
And the beat of impossible rhyme.
(Translated by Sampurna Chattarji from the Bengali)

(“Glusician” is not a typo, by the way; its utter unjustifiability is in some sense the point of the poem.)

Another of my favorites from the collection is an almost-limerick, originally written in Oriya by a writer named J.P. Das, and is called “Vain Cock”:

Taught to say ku-ku-du-koo, ku-ku-du-koo
He only said, ‘cock-a-doodle-doo’
Such a vain cock—
You’re in for a shock:
Not tandoori, you’ll only be stew.

(The joke here of course is that in many Indian languages a rooster’s cry is rendered along the lines of ‘ku-ku-du-koo’, and presumably in the Oriya version of “Vain Cock” the phrase “cock-a-doodle-doo” is rendered phonetically exactly as in English. The Vain cock, in short, is due for stew because of irremediable Anglophilic tendencies in his onomotopoeic ejaculation.)

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The Arranged Marriage World … is Flat

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For those of us who are so wishing that the public’s fascination with arranged marriages was over, well … it’s not. Back in 2005, there was a lot of buzz [including here] around financial writer Anita Jain’s New York magazine article “Is Arranged Marriage Really Any Worse Than Craigslist?” So much so that she got a book deal out of it.

Next month, her memoir Marrying Anita: A Quest for Love in the New India will be published in the UK, US, and India by Bloomsbury. anitaj.pg.jpg The book is being pitched as a “witty, confessional memoir” that simultaneously records Jain’s romantic quest and the story of “a country modernizing at breakneck speed.” The big question it asks: Is the new urban Indian culture in which she’s searching for a husband really all that different from America? Has globalization changed the face of arranged marriage

I want to groan, but I’m trying to be openminded and wait till I’ve actually read the book. I can’t help it though. The red flags go up in my mind when I hear about another arranged marriage book. And, now, this one combines that with another buzz word “globalization.” Is this the chick lit version of Thomas Friedman’s “The World is Flat”?

[Below the fold, glimpses of an excerpt which appeared at the Guardian last weekend.] Continue reading →

Poignancy can have limits: BRICK LANE review

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Is that salmonella outbreak still affecting tomatoes? Got a few that might be unsafe to eat? Well, pick ’em up and prepare to hurl them at me, cuz I thought Brick Lane was a dud. 1186156.jpg

But first, let me explain:
The movie is, of course, based on the critically acclaimed novel by Monica Ali. She of the Granta 20 under 40, Booker shortlist, and ravishing looks. No, I’m not jellus (ok, maybe a little bit), but for one reason or another, I never got around to reading the book.

Despite filmmakers ardent wishes, fans of any much-loved book want a movie to be a faithful adaptation. I praised The Namesake movie because it vividly brought the book to life, and willingly overlooked the disjointedness and odd pacing of the film.

Therefore, in the spirit of thoroughness, I picked up Ali’s book and spent the past few days hoping to crawl beneath the skin of the characters, to let their emotions wash over me, to exult in their triumphs and sob at their failures. I’m about halfway through and so far will admit that the movie does reflect the book: in both cases I struggled in vain to keep my eyes open. Well, I did manage to stay awake through the film, but the woman next to me succumbed quite rapidly to the charms of a deep, grunting, wheezing slumber.

Yes, the movie is poignant and lyrical and subtle. But just as the tension ratchets up in anticipation of a climax, the plot meanders, the intensity dissipates, and the viewer/reader slumps back into the seat.

Much like in sex, this can be very frustrating.

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