Category Archives: Photos

SM Memo: Nars “Hindu” is Very Brown

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The mission came my way via Abhi over a month ago, a reader had contacted our comment line with the following:

The high-end cosmetics company NARS has a new lipstick shade called Hindu…I wonder how a shade called Jew or Protestant would fare in the public eye? Is the idea that all Hindus have temptingly red lips? To be fair, there are also shades called Afghan Red and Gipsy. What do you think?

Said Abhi, “This one is ALL you.” Said me, “HELL YES!” I love Nars. If I’m not wearing Chanel makeup, I’m glowing because of the most notoriously named blush of all time. One problem– “Hindu” proved more elusive than I imagined. It was sold-out all over town. The intrigue grew; if it was so desired, I had to keep it under surveillance for the sake of the Mutiny. I finally located a tester of it at Blue Mercury Apothecary (apothecary!) and made my way to my prey.

Part of Nars’ Holiday ’06 collection, “Hindu” had sold so well, it would take a month for me to procure one for the Mutiny. “Nars just didn’t make enough,” my source said, as they prepared the tester for germ-phobic me. I loathe such situations, because I prefer to examine communal cosmetics on the back of my hand. The allegedly-disinfected lipstick was headed right for me. I started to panic, but then I remembered that every Mutiny requires pain and sacrifice.

When she was done with me, I was wearing a very brown lipstick with excellent texture, which reminded of a sheer version of Chanel’s “Very Vamp”. I expected redder tones, not the muted brown which I was studying. I also thought there would be more glitter, since it’s very visible in the tube. The staff praised the end result; I was less convinced by the “Hindu” effect. Maybe for the office, but it was too dull for my scenery-chewing tastes. I was thrilled that it looked so good on South Asian skin, though.

“Would you like to be put on the waiting list?”

I hesitated; normally I would have politely declined, but Abhi had tasked me with more than just scouting “Hindu” out:

My biggest question is can a nice Christian girl such as yourself be labeled a “heathen” if they apply this? If you kiss a nice Mallu boy with “Hindu” lipstick on, what would happen!

In the name of the Mutiny, I gladly put myself on the line to complete this mission; alas, I did not find a suitable partner for such a life-or-death covert operation. Abhi, forgive me. Continue reading →

It must be Election Day

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Senate candidate Jim Webb (D-Va), surrounded by macacas, makes a dosa.

SM reader Anup tips us off to the fact that Jim Webb (who is of course running against George Allen in Virginia) tried his hand at dosa-making in an obvious move to appeal to the macaca voting bloc.

In Richmond, Webb was also subdued, campaigning with Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, a fellow Democrat, at the Festival of India.

Webb sipped drinks indigenous to India and posed for photos, stopping at one booth to help pour the batter to make a masala dosa, a spicy South Indian crepe.

“Jim just made the best dosa anybody has ever made,” Kaine told hundreds of festival visitors. Webb did not address the crowd.

Webb’s presence left the festival co-chairman, Ranjit Sen, to reflect on remarks Allen had made in August that belittled a 20-year-old Webb volunteer of Indian descent at an Allen campaign stop. [Link]

But the question is did he have have a bowl of sambar on the side? Failure to have sambar with his dosa may cost him many desi votes. It is the same way that John Kerry lost a bunch of Pennsylvania voters when he stupidly ordered Swiss cheese on his Philly cheesesteak. If I ever run for office I will never be seen eating dosas. If word got out that I don’t like sambar and that I spread equal parts ketchup, sour cream, and green chutney on my dosa I’d be finished.

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Scary

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Each Friday NPR’s Morning Edition features a StoryCorp Project interview. You may recall that I had previously blogged about an interview between a Sri Lankan American husband and wife. This morning’s interview featured a really cute story (only ~1 minute long) from a Sri Lankan woman who came to the United States in 1969. I recommend that you guys stop reading this post right now and listen to this clip first. For those of you too lazy to follow my recommendation I will give you the lead in below:

Two friends interview each other in Pittsburgh

When Juliet Jegasothy came to the United States from Sri Lanka, she had already heard many stories about what life was like in America.

“We came to America in 1969, we were just newly married, and we came to Brooklyn, New York.” Jegasothy recently told her friend Sheena Jacob.

“I was so terrified to even open the door, because I had heard all these horror stories about crooks, and gangsters, and guns, in New York.“

Jegasothy soon encountered an American tradition that she was not prepared for… [Link]

I realize that I am jumping the gun and that Halloween isn’t until next Tuesday. However, most of you have probably been invited to some Halloween party this weekend (unlike some grad student I know who will be writing alone in his apartment dressed up like a blogger) and if you are a procrastinating slacker like me you could really use some costume advice STAT! After the jump I will provide you with some last minute ideas.

*WARNING* There is some scary sh*t past this point.

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Gregor Samsa Singh

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This morning, while I was tying my turban, I was thinking about All Mixed Up’s postcard from a few weeks back. In particular, I was trying to figure out why I didn’t understand the basic conundrum that people were wrestling with… that is, why I couldn’t imagine that being white would make me like everybody else.

Let me explain with a Gedankenexperiment. Imagine that I, as a teenager, had awoken one morning to find that myself a person of pallor. I was now pink rather than brown. Who would I be?

I would like to think that I would be the guy on the left. To be honest, I was never as cool as he was. I never dressed like a Nihang, nor did I travel around India at that age. Still, I’d like to think that’s who my white doppleganger in an alternate universe would have been, even if I had been dorkier.

Now imagine that a decade later, the machine that had transformed me reversed polarity, flooding me with extra melanin. Perhaps this is my melanin plus a decade of interest. Or perhaps it is sucked from somewhere else – from some other poor soul who wakes up paler than when they slept. It doesn’t matter.

Now, all of a sudden, I’m not white but black. In this case, I’d like to think that I would be like Sri Chand Singh on the right. Sri Chand is not a convert – he (and his twin brother) have been Sikhs their whole lives. Again, I doubt I’d ever be as cool as either of them [Look at the photo of Laxmi Chand beating the Nagara drum below the fold for a photo of a supercool Sikh], but I hope I would try.

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The Brownz Yearbook

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I now have a new goal in my pseudo-internet-life — to somehow get my picture into the new addictive blog, Brown People. What is this “Brown People Blog”? Why it is almost the best form of wasting a Friday work day ever (second only to creating 55Friday Fictions.)

random photos of brown people.

(thats it. that’s the concept.)

How you use it up to you. . .as a reminder that different brown people are doing their thing, use it as detox from reading 17 magazine, use it to find ideas for a haircut, to remind yourself you’re not an invisible freak, to procrastinate on your postcolonial studies paper…whatever you please.)(this is of course not one of those stupid rating things though.). [link]

The bloggers on this site are anonymously fabulous in their selections of brownz ranging from the SM (in)famous Kal and Parminder all the way to the non-famous brown faces on flickr. Our very own ANNA has even made an appearance to the site. I liken this site much to a desi version of the high school yearbook — you never quite know how to get your picture in the yearbook, but you know it’s significant to your popularity when your photo is in it.

Come on, it’s a Friday. Check out the site. They source all of the pictures so it has a real potential to suck you into hours of brownz web surfing. To quote Ismat, how are you going to use this site?

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Sepia Signs

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When I was last in India, around new years, I took a lot of photos of signs (Posts: 1, 2, 3) Of all the ones I saw, however, these two were my favorites. I spotted them at a Reliance truck stop / Dhaba on a toll road in Gujarat, late at night.

The first sign clearly indicates a ladies room, but in a very desi way. This is what I’d always hoped for from modern India; not a straight forward cloning of the west, but instead a bollystyle mashup, a “blend of eastern and western” tackyness. Yes, I know that not all Indian women wear saris, I’m Punjabi. But it’s still more apposite than a woman in a dress, and for Gujarat, it’s dead on many Gujarati women wear saris, albeit in the local style.

The second one I love because it takes the mickey out of the western name for the facilities, the “bathroom”. You know, if you’re doing #2 in a tub, I really don’t want to know about it. Toilets are for p*ssing and sh*tting in, bathrooms are for bathing in. And better still, this icon doesn’t show a western style shower (which many truck drivers may never have used) but instead an Indian style bath (or a very confused man using a lota wrongly ). It’s a shame these signs aren’t available for import here …

Oh yes, in case you were curious, the men’s room was spotless (unlike this: 1, 2) My nostalgia for traditional dhabas only goes so far …

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Welcome Grandmaster P!

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We at Sepia Mutiny would like to extend a very snarky hearty welcome to the newest Sepia Macaca: Puran Singh. That’s right – Deep is a daddy! [Mothers everywhere want to know what the rest of us are waiting for]

Puran Singh (“Master P,” as my brother is already calling him) was born yesterday at 8pm. He’s 8 pounds, 2 ounces (3.7 Kg), and both he and his mother are doing well. We have lots of family around helping us out and giving support (thanks, everyone), and the hospital experience has been pretty good, though the final stage of labor was difficult (I guess it always is).

The name means “fulfillment,” “completion,” or “perfection.” No one in our family has been named “Puran,” but there are a couple of famous people who have had this name: including Bhagat Puran Singh and also a famous Punjabi poet. In the Sikh tradition, the first letter of a baby’s name is usually chosen by opening the Guru Granth Sahib at random, and taking a “Vakh.” The first letter of the page opened is supposed to be the first letter of the baby’s name. In our case, we got “P,” and I immediately thought of “Puran…” [Link]

P is for Perfection

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That’s NOT How You Do The “Head Thing”

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never do that again please.JPG Dear Nidhi M.,

Thank you very much for sending Sepia Mutiny a story idea via our tipline three hours ago. It was so kind of you to think of us as you went about your day.

Since you have demonstrated your generosity already, I feel emboldened enough to wonder if you’d be willing to go a bit further in showing your devotion to this mutinous cause. Do you bleed Sepia? If so, would you graciously consider donating one of your eyes to me? I lost mine when I clawed them out, after watching the link you helpfully enclosed with the following succinct statement:

Nike teaming up with 24 hour fitness mixing and mucking up classical indian dances with bollywood and strange robotic aerobic moves.

Mein Gott, that’s almost poetic. You were right. And now, I am in so much pain because of it. I’d gouge away at the intern’s face, but she took one look at me and ran screaming to Rajni the lemur’s room. At least she didn’t have to watch Jamie King train three mostly wooden dancers in his “Rockstar workout” of “far-East funk”. Nor did she have to hear his priceless wisdom, which I feel I must contradict fervently after watching this entire fiasco:

There are no rules. If you’re feeling the music, you can’t go wrong.

TRUST me. You can indeed go wrong. Especially when you employ that uber-abused cliche which has appeared on browndating dot com so many times, my friends have turned it in to part of a drinking game (“OMG, he prefaced it with ‘good blend of’…DOUBLE SHOT!”).

Of course, I am referring to that bi-cultural, directional claptrap which automatically disqualified all otherwise-promising candidates from suitable debauchery; Mr. King’s spin on it didn’t prevent the gagging, not after what I saw. “East meets West on the dance floor”? Come to any random desi party and you can abuse “South” as well, i.e. “when East meets West on the dance floor, two rabidly horny underage hormones often move South in order to simulate an act which MummyPapa would spank them unconscious for, for even pondering”. Anyway. When this man who has choreographed Madge exhorts us to “just get out there and show your Bollywood style!”, I don’t think he realizes what fresh hell he is inviting the world to suffer through by doing so.

Chick Pea? Are you out there? Have you done your surgical rotation yet??? That faint, scratchy squawking you hear is Abhi, frantically paging you to the bunker’s painfully rustic OR. Go, scrub your hands already! My anesthesiologist Dr. Walker is already prepping me for surgery. As for the rest of you, just know this and remember it well– when you dance like that, you make the baby Jesus cry. Worse than that, you also piss off our Desidancer.

Blindly yours,

A N N A

:+:

(more pictures after the jump, click to enlarge them…if you dare) Continue reading →