Category Archives: Arts and Entertainment

Walking a Mile in Someone Else’s Chappals

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I’m waiting in line at the “secret” coffee place I mentioned in a post once, on the phone with one of my closest friends.

“How are you? How’s the ankle?”, he asks.

“Blue and mediocre.”

“Wait, WHAT?”

“Well, I’m wearing a blue dress and it still hurts. Actually, I officially sound like an Ammachi/Naniji now, because my hip hurts constantly. Apparently, three months of limping will do that to you!”

“Smartypants, here I was worried you were ‘blue’ as in sad.”

“Tiny bit. Always am around the holidays.”

“Are you going home for Thanksgiving?”

“No. Mom’s traveling, no one’s there.”

“What timing for a trip!”

“Well…we never really celebrated the holiday. My parents had that typical snarky comeback, you know, ‘only Americans would need a special day to be thankful for everything. Hmmph! We’re thankful daily!’…like that. So it was just a regular day at our house…with slightly different TV programs.”

“So you have not had this…tofurkey you sent me, on Facebook?”

“No. I don’t eat tofu.”

“You sound sad.”

“I guess I am, a little bit. Everyone’s rushing off with a suitcase and while I don’t really want to travel THIS week, it reminds me that they’re going to be with their family, and that does make me miss home. This is my first Thanksgiving when I’m not going anywhere. It’s a little depressing.”

“Well, now you know what a FOB feels like.” Continue reading →

Loins / Meetup Wrapup

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SF mutineers, together with writer / director Manish Acharya imbibed the Loins of Punjab last night as part of the SF South Asian film festival. Two word summary – it rocked.

Two word summary – it rocked.A crowd numbering several hundred packed the Castro theater in San Francisco for the laugh out loud ride and presented Acharya with a standing ovation and even a little bit of spontaneous singing (“Bole chudiyan… bole kangana…“) for his work. Although, as expected, Desi’s dominated the audience, the movie really resonated with the surprising gora / gori representation and the hispanic lesbian couple I was seated next to laughed most of the time as well. Still, much of the appeal of the genre comes from being in on the joke and the real magic is best experienced if you’re ABCD and perhaps even moreso if you’ve spent time in New Jersey.

Nevertheless, Loins is, by a wide margin, my new title holder for “Best ABCD Comedy.” My previous candidate was the (panned by many) Where’s the Party, Yaar about a group of desi college students in Houston. Both movies transcend the usual “cultural idenity” story line and instead solidly demonstrate a new, hybrid culture that’s neither here nor there but nevertheless confident about where it is and where it’s going. American and desi stereotypes blend fluidly and we’re far from feeling sorry for the folks with one foot on either side.

A Universe of Patels

Probably owing to the respective backgrounds of the film makers, WTPY is a bit more “American” in its character portrayals while Loins was far more Desi. Although both Manish Acharya and Benny Mathews of WTPY are 1.5 gen, Benny undoubtedly got most of his material from the Music Masala parties aimed at Houston’s desi young adults – hence, a more overt “hormones gone wild” and, unfortunately a generally less flattering FOB portrayal. By contrast, Loins of Punjab brings in a much broader audience of heroes and heroines sporting both ABD and DBD colors.

Loins, however, is yards ahead of Where’s the Party in the quality of its writing, execution, fit, and finish. Some critics weren’t impressed by the “gimmicky” humor but, as an audience commentor noted, Manish does a fantastic job of making old punchlines fresh and unexpected. I know we’ve seen the hero’s significant other defect and return a million times before… But, in Loins it’s so well executed that even a sophisticated, and sometimes cynical audience in a place like SF was still taken by surprise.

WTPY: ABCDs, FOBs, Boys, Girls, and a Party

The casting was superb and, as Acharya emphasized in Q&A after the flick, character development is the backbone of the movie. Their quirks and interactions had me solidly entertained for its hour and a half duration and I can honestly say that I wish the movie overall was longer. The title leads one to expect more story / character development around the Loin King, for example – a promising angle but one which is unexplored. Jameel Khan’s sleazy event producer made the most of his on-screen time and yet, I still wanted more. Ajay Naidu’s Turbantorious BDG was so well done I had a hard time believing it was really him dancing, rapping and shooting off angrier-than-thou lines. Still, going further down all these avenues while keeping within acceptable bounds for movie length would probably have been impossible and I’m forced to credit Acharya for his restraint.

It is critical to note that while poking fun at character and ethnic quirks (the individual Guju family members captured the panoply of stereotypes so well it’s scary), the comedy was ultimately good natured and uplifting. Yes, we’re often laughing at them but we also all recognize that the world would be a worse place without them. Acharya firmly believes & demonstrates that there are many paths to being a movie hero. And when the foundation for your story is a diaspora as diverse as India and America, it’s a fitting moral.

Straight Outta Da Pindh

Good news for mutineers in other cities – Acharya says that Loins is aiming for limited release in the US in March 2008.

After the movie, a dozen mutineers & I tried to converge on Samovar Tea Lounge for a mini-meetup…. However, the venue turned out to be far more of a restaurant than an alternative to Starbucks and menu’s + white-linen table service tends to be pretty antithetical to the flow of a meetup. So, we ended up rerouting ourselves across the street to Urban Bread for coffee and pastries. Consensus at the table was strongly positive and with many surprised by the negative reaction other mutineers seemed to have to the flick. To each his own, I suppose.

[related – Manish Vij’s Loins of Punjab review & link compendium]

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Toys for young mutineers (or you)

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Kids these days just have it so much better (note: use of this phrase indicates Abhi’s advanced age an increasing irrelevance to our youngest readers). When I was young we didn’t have that many ethnocentric toys to choose from around the holidays. All I really wanted for Christmas was a Destro. I mean, a grenade necklace is just cool (not that I believe that children should be exposed to toys that glorify terrorist networks such as COBRA, which sought to undermine U.S. military policy around the world).

Today, companies like Kridana.com are selling bad-ass Hanuman action figures like the one above. This isn’t your father’s Hanuman. This one looks like a professional triathlete/MMA Fighter. There are two types of parents that would buy a toy like this for their child. The first is the young, second-generation couple that is worried that they aren’t doing enough to familiarize their child with their religious Hindu roots. It would be bad if Hinduism became irrelevant to the next generation so Hanuman, and similar action figures, can serve as a good stop-gap measure. The other kind of parent (the kind that I one day hope to be) would buy this for themselves. Check it out, here is the scenario. You could buy the Hanuman above and also a barrel of monkeys. Then you could pretend that Hanuman was a great general and that under his leadership the barrel of monkeys were able to sweep forth and stem the tide of evil monkey attacks currently taking place in Indian cities like Delhi. The people of India would be grateful and a beautiful woman would fall for him (not just because of his muscles but because of his virtue, good soul, and leadership abilities). Speaking of which, I have to hit up the gym.

Does anyone else think that Hanuman looks a bit like a brown Panthro?

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How to map Muslims and find the best falafels

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A couple of diabolically ingenious (or phenomenally stupid) plans have been recently reported on in the media, both plans intended to ascertain where American Muslims be hanging out (so as to keep tabs on the potential terrorists hiding among them). The first was Los Angeles’ Muslim Mapping Project. At first I assumed that the LAPD intended to map the spread of Islam in the world since the birth of Muhammad…but then I realized that the department probably doesn’t employ many history or religion PhDs. “Muslim Mapping” must mean something else. Here is an excerpt from the LAPD officer who briefed the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (headed by Joe Lieberman):

“In order to give our officers increased awareness of our local Muslim communities, the LAPD recently launched an initiative with an academic institution to conduct an extensive “community mapping” project. We are also soliciting input of local Muslim groups, so the process can be transparent and inclusive. While this project will lay out the geographic locations of the many different Muslim population groups around Los Angeles, we also intend to take a deeper look at their history, demographics, language, culture, ethnic breakdown, socio-economic status, and social interactions. It is our hope to identify communities, within the larger Muslim community, which may be susceptible to violent ideologically-based extremism and then use a full-spectrum approach guided by an intelligence-led strategy…” [Link]

“We want to know where the Pakistanis, Iranians and Chechens are so we can reach out to those communities,” LAPD Deputy Chief Michael P. Downing was quoted by CBS news as saying Thursday. [Link]

This plan actually makes a lot of sense to me (and doesn’t Downing seem downright neighborly?). It would be much too difficult to move all the Muslims into ghettos with well-defined boundaries. I don’t think Homeland Security has that kind of budget (yet). Why not use GIS data and other high tech strategies to simply make a virtual map of Muslims? I mean, Google Map already has overlays for satellite imagery, traffic, and street view. It wouldn’t be hard for Google to simply add a “Muslim neighborhoods” overlay to their GoogleMaps would it?

We have learned that Muslim communities in the U.S. are mistrustful of the mainstream media. Therefore, they may turn to other sources of information for news and socialization, such as the Internet. Unfortunately, despite all of the positive aspects of the Internet, it allows those individuals and groups with ideological agendas to easily make contact with like-minded individuals and access potentially destructive information. [Link]

Holy crap. I know that Muslims read our site and socialize here with like-minded individuals through comments. Despite the fact that I like this plan I hope we aren’t getting mapped as well.

Continue reading →

SF: Movie & a Meetup; Sat Nov 17

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Hello SF Mutineers, just a gentle reminder that the SF South Asian Film Festival kicks of today. Our movie + mini-meetup is tomorrow, Saturday, November 17.

The Movie –

2:00 pm, Saturday, November 17th, Castro Theater, San Francisco
Admission: $10
Director: Manish Acharya
Country: India (2007)
Running Time: 88 mins, 35mm, Color

Synopsis & Tickets

The Meetup – After the movie, a drink at Samovar Tea Lounge, just a couple blocks around the corner.


View Larger Map

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And all she got was a bun.

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Wow, more weird India news! Yay!.jpg

Allow me to preempt someone from asking why I chose to write this story. No, really, let’s get it out of the way, this nimisham:

• Did this really have to be blogged?

• Slow news day?

• Aren’t X,Y and Q more important?

• And furthermore, doesn’t your lack of blogging X,Y and Q indicate that you are a heartless bitch who doesn’t care about Pakistan/the Nuke Deal/the environment/immigration??

Yes,

maybe,

perhaps and

refer to my finger, for that last one. It’s an extra-challenging week at work, so I can’t write anything dazzling, not that the performances which I usually phone in are sublime. I don’t have much time, but when something’s on my mind, it’s easier (read: cathartic) to type, so a “Musings” post it shall be.

Unless you were the last person to be found during hide and seek yesterday, you have heard the cringe-inducing-on-so-many-levels news about an Indian man “marrying” a dog (thanks, Aggiebabe). It is somewhat like the whole “Aish weds trees…twice”-fiasco…except in TMBWITW’s case, she was doing it to compensate for her apparently unfortunate nakshatram and not because she had killed two trees.

An Indian man has “married” a female dog, hoping the move will help atone for stoning two other dogs to death.
P Selvakumar, 33, said he had been cursed since the killings, suffering paralysis and a loss of hearing.
The wedding took place at a Hindu temple in Tamil Nadu state. The “bride” wore an orange sari with a flower garland and was fed a bun to celebrate.
Superstitious people in rural India sometimes organise weddings to animals in the hope of warding off curses.[BBC]

Buried among the hundreds of jokes which punsters are giddily guffawing over (enjoy your free pass to bitch about how the bride is a bitch…but more on that later) is to me the most appalling aspect of this story; this man killed two innocent, defenseless creatures.

I didn’t know how he killed them until I settled in to my seat on the subway this morning and found out that he had stoned them. That detail bothered me so much, because my imagination doesn’t need any assistance in recreating actual events. Have you ever seen an animal cowering in front of a human? Yelping and whimpering out of fear and pain? It’s heartbreaking, but that’s what this so-called man saw, as he brutally stoned two dogs. I remember the way our late German Shepherds looked terrified and anxious, when they were merely being scolded…and that was after they had committed capital offenses, like uprooting our only curry leaf plant. Continue reading →

Review: Nikita Lalwani’s “Gifted”

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The debut novel by Nikita Lalwani, Gifted, makes for quite enjoyable reading. It’s about an Indian girl’s coming of age in Cardiff, Wales, as a math prodigy pushed and prodded by an overly controlling father. nikita-lalwani-gifted.jpg

The father’s obsession with having his daughter achieve a very rigid kind of academic greatness should ring a bell with second gen/ABD readers, especially given the apparent desi fascination with things like Spelling Bees (often discussed here at Sepia Mutiny) and World Records. For most middle class desi kids growing up in the west, childhood is often (whether you like it or not) all about “studies” — and Lalwani’s book shows a case of that parental obsession taken to an extreme.

That said, Lalwani’s Rumi (short for Rumika) is in fact genuinely interested in math and numbers from an early age, and Lalwani does a good job of taking us into her head without drowning the reader in math problems. Though I’m not particularly mathematically inclined myself, I do remember there being a certain luminosity to math problems as a child/teenager — something beautiful in algebraic abstractions, or the spiraling concept of infinity in calculus. (Unfortunately for me, I tended to be more enthusiastic about the aesthetics of the math than in actually solving the problems at hand…)

Here’s a short passage from early on in Gifted, where Rumi (age 8 at the time) is chatting with her relations while on a trip to India. They are discussing real-life math prodigy, Shakuntala Devi, who was able to multiply two thirteen digit numbers in her head: Continue reading →

Shah Rukh’s Abs Conquer Global Box Office

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Bollywood film Om Shanti Om brought in about $1.8 million at the U.S. box office over the weekend, which puts it at a respectable #11 on the U.S. chart (on only 114 screens). It’s certainly the highest U.S. opening for a Bollywood film I’ve seen in recent years; it may be the highest ever (anyone know for sure?). The film also did very well in India and other markets, coming in ahead of the Tom Cruise war flick, Lions for Lambs, internationally.

Serious cinephiles (and some not-so-serious ones) have reviewed the film and dissected its merits and flaws. But the director, Farah Khan, has essentially credited the film’s success to one thing — Shah Rukh Khan’s exposed torso:

“The entire credit for the film’s success goes to Shah Rukh,” director Farah Khan told Reuters over phone on Sunday. “He is the film’s main attraction and the shirtless song is definitely one of the main reasons for the film’s hit. It is the scene to watch out for.” The bare-chested act by the 42-year-old actor who underwent rigorous training sessions to develop a six-pack, has helped the song “Dard-E-Disco” reach the top of the charts across television channels and FM radio stations. (link)

See the following hard-hitting report from Star News, for a more behind-the-scenes look at Shah Rukh’s abs:

The segment opens in Hindi, but after about 30 seconds there are English subtitles. It’s worth staying at least until Shah Rukh makes that comment about his cleavage (!); there’s also a sneaky little insinuation about Karan Johar there at the end. Continue reading →

Two Things I Think We Can All Agree On

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1) Padma Lakshmi may not be the sharpest tool in the shed:

“Padma Lakshmi,” she hoped, might one day be on as many food labels as “Paul Newman”—“a big hero.” Soon there would be Padma jewelry and fashion, “like Jennifer Lopez,” she said, and television and cookware, “like Martha Stewart.” In September, she sealed a major deal with IMG, the sports-and-entertainment marketing giant. “She has a global image and no end of ideas,” said John Steele, a senior V.P., “so we have multiple agreements.” “Like,” Padma said, “Tiger Woods.” How amazing was it that she, the daughter of a single mother who fled India to escape the stigma of divorce, was poised to become the first Indian woman with an American brand—perhaps the first to self-brand. “I’m as American as anyone else,” she has said. (link)

Ah yes, comparing yourself to Martha Stewart, Jennifer Lopez, and Tiger Woods in a single paragraph. Why not also go for P Diddy, to round out your own private Macy’s commercial of utter delusion? (Read on for more wince-worthy quotes…)

2) But she knows how to work the hair:

padma-lakshmi-vanity-fair.jpg

(Thanks for the tip, KXB. I know you read Vanity Fair for the articles, too.) Continue reading →

More on CW’s “Aliens in America”

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I know SM is rightly consumed with a different Musharraf, but all this talk about Mushie reminded me of CW’s Aliens in America, which, for those of you who don’t recall, is a new television sitcom featuring a protagonist named Raja Musharaff. I loved the pilot but many of you, my bunker-mate Amardeep included, were all “eh”.

Well, ahem. Salon’s Heather Havrilesky likes AiA, too. Take that, pooh-pooers. 😉

From yesterday’s Salon’s guide to what to watch:

God is allergic to Jell-O. Most cats show a preference for the color orange. There’s a very funny comedy that you’re not watching, and it’s on the CW. Which one of these statements is true? Amazingly enough, the CW’s “Aliens in America” (8:30 p.m. EST Mondays) is not only consistently funny, it’s also charming and absurd and addictive, setting it miles apart from the CW’s typical herd of superpowered teenage hotties. The story of a Pakistani exchange student named Raja who goes to live with an average family in a small town in Wisconsin could have landed in unreasonably dorky territory. Instead, the show’s writers have churned out a steady stream of seriously clever scripts, dense with absurd jokes and memorable moments, making “Aliens in America” feel more like a modern, snappy update on a John Hughes film. The dorky Midwestern Tolchuck family is pitch perfect, but the big star here is Adhir Kalyan, whose spot-on performance as the hopelessly earnest and morally upright Raja is responsible for the show’s most hilarious moments. (You can watch one of the best recent episodes, “Rocket Club,” here.) [kumquat]

I think Adhir Kalyan is kinda funny:

One writer asked Kalyan if he experienced culture shock, coming to the U.S. from South Africa. His reply: “In truth, the only thing I found difficult to deal with coming to the States is the size of the portions of food. Really — I mean, really, do we need portions that are that big? I mean, Africa doesn’t need Bono. Africa doesn’t need Geldof. Africa needs a Denny’s grand-slam breakfast.” [mangosteen]

From the same link:

You’ll get a bit of a “Freaks and Geeks”/”Wonder Years” vibe from “Aliens,” though it has a way to go to imitate the pure heart of those classics.

See, I totally think it has heart. While I haven’t gone out of my way to catch every episode (I’m usually getting home bang in the middle of the program, and I hate cutting in…and yes, I know, I am the only mutineer sans TiVo), I was able to see last night’s Aliens and I was reminded of how cute it was. I was smiling for thirty minutes. The show is totes sweet.

I stand by my initial positivity towards one of CW’s finest, especially after last night’s special guest star– the hoochie-rific Homecoming dress– almost stole the show. If popular little sister Claire knew what her Mom did while trying it on, I doubt that she would have pitched that tantrum about returning it. 😉 Also, it takes a non-trivial amount of talent to keep those multiple, “mandatory” tags crease-free while being so…um…active; every girl here who has purchased a prom dress/formal/bridesmaid outfit knows exactly what I mean.

Have any of you kept up with it or caught something beyond the pilot? Has Raja won you over or are you still not sold? Continue reading →