Category Archives: Humor

Rub a Dub Dub

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One of my goals in life is to figure out a way to get paid to watch Bollywood movies and yell at the TV screen.  According to an article in Salon by Sumana Harihareswara, someone (actually four someones) has beaten me to it:

“Uncle Morty’s Dub Shack,” which just finished its first season on the ImaginAsian cable network, is the “Mystery Science Theater 3000” of bad Asian films, and like its predecessor with the then-unknown Comedy Central, it could help put the obscure iaTV on the map. The conceit of the show is that four loser friends — Trevor, Aladdin, Jimbo and John — earn a little extra cash dubbing martial arts, action and Bollywood films into English at the Dub Shack, run by an old crank named Morty. Uncle Morty doesn’t have the translated scripts, so the friends turn the movie scenes into sketch comedy. For those of us who didn’t warm to MST3K, “Uncle Morty’s” is easier to love, because it’s only half an hour long (the films are significantly, and mercifully, edited down), and the writers create believable alternate narratives for the flicks instead of merely smirking at them.

Unfortunately, iaTV is not offered by my satellite provider, so I had to make do with the clips on Uncle Morty’s website.  (Of the Bollywood clips, I enjoyed “Goatman” and “Chicken Members” the most.)  The episode guide lists Dushman Duniya Ka, Dand Nayak, and Soch among the cinematic treasures given the Dub Shack treatment.  (The channel has also been airing the intriguingly-titled Duplicate Sholay.)

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Bird Flu, Indian Reverse Engineers and Mangosteens, Oh My!

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I sometimes hang out at Brad DeLong’s blog, where apparently Razib thought I was a dude. Yesterday DeLong wrote a Cipla's Chief, Yusu Hamiedpost about Tamiflu, the Roche patented drug which is the one of the only plausible defenses against the dreaded Avian influenza or Asian Bird Flu. DeLong was mostly concerned with the domestic policy and economic ramifications of nationalizing a patent in times of emergency and stockpiling a drug ahead of time, but as with Sepia Mutiny, the comments can be most educational–and that’s how I found out that clever Cipla is at its Robin Hood reverse engineering tricks again. Bird flu is, of course, a global issue:

Cipla, an Indian producer of generic drugs, is preparing to become an alternative producer of oseltamivir phosphate, an antiviral drug better known by the brand name Tamiflu.Cipla plans to offer Tamiflu in the Indian market and in 49 less-developed countries where the company already sells AIDS treatments, Hamied says. The legality of the introduction in India, where pharmaceutical patents started to be recognized this year, is uncertain.

Hamied says he will withdraw Tamiflu from the Indian market if Roche’s patent is recognized.  (Link.)

A Roche spokesman, Terry Hurley, said that the company ”fully intends to remain the sole manufacturer of Tamiflu.” . .Making the drug involves 10 complex steps, he said, and the company believes that it’ll take another company ”two to three years, starting from scratch,” to produce it. Hamied dismissed that claim, saying that he initially thought it would be too hard but that his scientists had finished reverse-engineering the drug in his laboratories two weeks ago. He said he could have small commercial quantities available as early as January 2006. Asked if he thought Hamied was making an idle boast, Hurley declined to comment. Hamied said he would sell generic Tamiflu ”at a humanitarian price” in developing nations and not aim at the US or European market. ”God forbid the avian flu should strike India,” he said. ”There is no line of defense.” (Link.)

What does this have to do with mangosteens? I’m glad you asked!

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I Can’t Drive 55…

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…but I can write it. So can all of you, apparently.

Dear, excessively creative readers writers, since we commenced our sweet Friday festival of nanofiction fun, it feels like someone put a chip and new exhaust system in that vehicle called time. Those around me will attest that I can often be found muttering, “Where do the hours go?” several times a day; thanks to this delightful ritual, I’m even more incredulous. It’s Friday? AGAIN? Didn’t I just write this post? Yowza. It’s like Groundblog’s day.

In any case, indulge me in my disbelief, that it is already time to write an uber-short story and leave it or a link to it in the comments section below.

If you’re just tuning in, you might want to read this and then this, so you learn what I’m going on about, as well as how you can join in the chant. That second link established yet another tradition I’m sticking to– I like the idea of selecting the three short-shorts that made me swoon. Without further blathering, here they be:

When Jai Singh said, “I guess I may as well kick this off….” he wasn’t playing, y’all. The following gem left me daydreaming with a wistful smile on my face, as I concomitantly recalled my fond days in History 196A AND a certain battle scene from LOTR. Suh-wooooooon.

60,000 Rajputs waited in the crisp dawn, armour glinting in the sunlight, horses battle-ready. The track down the mountainside twisted ahead, the green flags of the approaching legion already visible.
With a thundering evocation to the Almighty, they raised their curved swords skywards in unison. The black smoke from the pyres billowed above the fortress.

Jay’s 55 was adroit; it captivated all of us, as we attempted to solve the ingenious riddle he posed:

Ice broke under the ankle. In a hospital room they conspired friendship. Set to work, she fumbled at the remote clumsily. In the boardroom she spat venom as they cornered her – then unbelievably granted reprieve. From the loft she saw the little woman walking towards the cab. She knew that it should have been her.

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The inalienable right to blog

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The IIPM issue in India provides me with a great opportunity to educate SM readers and fellow bloggers about the assault of late on a precious (but little known) liberty here in the United States of America.  It is the fundamental, God-given right to blog!  A few weeks back we received what was intended to be a “Cease and Desist Notice” from someone claiming to be the lawyer of a person that we had written about on SM.  This “lawyer” threatened legal action and dire consequences unless we took down the “libelous” statements against their client.  However, in none of our posts had we made any libelous statements about the semi-celebrity in question.  Rather, it was some of the commenters to our site that had written what might be considered rude.

Dear Sir or Madam,

I represent the legal interests of ########. The content on your site contains libelous information that is against the interests of my client ########. The information on your website cannot be verified and contains defamatory, heresay information.

We are firmly requesting that you take down this web site within 24 hours. We are prepared to take legal action against your company and will sue you at the full extent of the law for punitive damages.

This notice was followed by several others (including a “second notice” time stamped two minutes after the first one) that increasingly led us to believe that this lawyer was either a friend of the person we had offended, or the person themselves posing as a lawyer.  Making a few spelling mistakes and citing laws that seem sketchy, sort of erode one’s credibility.  Getting sued over this might have been a welcome experience though.  I have always sort of dreamed of representing myself in front of the Supreme Court, grilled by Scalia, and waking up to that goddess Nina Totenberg re-capping my oral arguments on NPR as I lay in bed the next morning in rapture.  I coulda’ been a contenda’.  Having reviewed the relevant precedents, we think we would have done quite well in court if slapped with a lawsuit.  I am what people would term a Constitutional Originalist. Who am I to doubt what the Framers originally put into the Constitution?  Who am I to question or re-interpret their original intentions?  Let me direct you to Article IV Section 4 of that most sacred of documents:

The United States shall guarantee the rights of every Blogger in this Union, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence and frivolous lawsuits.

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The Toral is Unleashed

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I’ve been working like a dog the past few months & one of my few connections to pop culture has been my beloved TiVo.  So, after a day of conference calls & meetings, I decided to vege a bit and watch last week’s Apprentice and check out how Sepia Mutiny’s friend Toral Mehta was doing.

Now, in contrast to Raj who dished up the drama almost from the outset, Toral’s been disappointingly flying beneath the radar and laying low.   No longer – last week her fangs were unleashed and my-oh-my what snobby, elitist, east coast fangs they were.   A few choice quotes –

“I’m from Wharton …we’re really here to demonstrate work ethic and that’s a different style of thinking from those individuals who have not been trained by large corporate institutions

“I would have to say that there are a group of women here [pointing at a gaggle of laughing blondes] who have banded together based on the fact that they have no work experience.   I like them all on a personal level, I think they’re cute people if I had a secretary job or an administrative job, I’d happily hire any of these people”

Oh Boy.   Now that’s a good way inspire folks.  Note to The Toral, it’s one thing to not forget the little people as you rocketship takes off.   It’s a different thing to tell ’em they’re little before your ship has even left the ground. 

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O Henry

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It’s Columbus Day here in the U.S., or Indigenous People’s Day in the republic of Berkeley. Let’s toast Amerigo Vespucci and Cristóbal Colón: the former for lending his name to the continent, the latter for one of the biggest geographic cockups of all time.

As we all know, Columbus was horndoggin’ it to the land of mirch masala. Like some lecherous old geezer, he ran across a couple of prepubescent bumps in the sea and mistook them for the Himalayas. Always happy to compound a mistake, he then foundered upon the continental shelf and called its inhabitants Indians.

Contrary to popular belief, most educated individuals in the 15th century, and especially sailors, already knew that the earth was round. What was not realized by Columbus, however, was just how big a globe it was. Columbus seriously underestimated the size of the planet. [Link]

He believed the peaks of Cuba were the Himalayas of India, which gives one a sense of just how lost he was… [Link]

Not just bad at math, he was a poor businessman to boot. You’d think he’d notice they had no jewels, silk or spices. And hello, no turbans? It apparently didn’t occur to him to ask the Arawak what they called themselves. No wonder Rome fell — the Italiano was Mr. Magoo playing with sailboats in a bathtub.

We live in the United States of HenryBecause of Columbo, we suffer the same irritation as when someone nabs our handle on Gmail. We suffer the same pain as being given a dorky nickname that stuck. We’re not Indians here but rather East Indians, we’re all Oriya here. We’re not Asians but rather South Asians, running on IST relative to the Chinese. We’re Asian Indians, dot not feather. Searching the card catalog at research libraries sucks. We did not get a neat moniker like As-Am. We’re stuck with rickety contraptions like South Asian American or Asian Indian American or just fuckin’ desi, yaar.

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Give and take

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south park.gif Well, this is delightfully unexpected. A technology support services company called SlashSupport just announced that it’s outsourcing—to America. Yummy globalization.

HereÂ’s information from the press release, via SAJAÂ’s email discussion list:

SlashSupport, the technology support services company announced today the opening of a new support center in San Jose, California. It is SlashSupport’s sixth center (adding to its existing four locations in India and a redundancy center in Singapore). SlashSupport is a part of Cybernet Software Systems ( CSS ) Group.
SlashSupport’s core support delivery backbone at India employs over 2000 representatives, at four distinct support centers spread across 180,000 sq. ft. in Chennai, India.

This might only be the beginning?

The new San Jose support center will help SlashSupport meet some of the local support needs in providing complete range of support services, significantly strengthening its support infrastructure outside India. Depending on the needs of the business, SlashSupport has the option of expanding its North America operations.

Jason Alexander, erstwhile-Costanza and current…um…outsourcing guru was unavailable for comment. Continue reading →

Nanda wins ignominious Ig Nobel

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Mahatma Gandhi may never have won a Nobel, but Gauri Nanda makes it all ok.

The Ig Nobels are the Hasty Puddings of the science world. They’re given out for the most pointless or humorous scientific research, like one winning paper on how leeches react to beer and sour cream. (Like humans, I’m guessing they swell up and die.)

Nanda won last night for her annoying, you-must-get-out-of-bed alarm clock. She’ll make a perfect desi mom someday Congrats, Gauri!

ECONOMICS: Gauri Nanda of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for inventing an alarm clock that runs away and hides, repeatedly, thus ensuring that people DO get out of bed, and thus theoretically adding many productive hours to the workday.

The 2005 Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded on Thursday evening, October 6, at the 15th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, at Harvard’s Sanders Theatre… [Link]

Note that last night was their 15th ‘First Annual’ ceremony, like it’s my friends’ tenth 21st birthdays  Here’s more on Nanda. Past South Asia-related winners:

MATHEMATICS: K.P. Sreekumar and the late G. Nirmalan of Kerala Agricultural University, India, for their analytical report “Estimation of the Total Surface Area in Indian Elephants…”

PHYSICS: Deepak Chopra of The Chopra Center for Well Being, La Jolla, California, for his unique interpretation of quantum physics as it applies to life, liberty, and the pursuit of economic happiness. [REFERENCE: Deepak Chopra’s books “Quantum Healing,” “Ageless Body, Timeless Mind,” etc.]…

PEACE: Lal Bihari, of Uttar Pradesh, India, for a triple accomplishment: First, for leading an active life even though he has been declared legally dead; Second, for waging a lively posthumous campaign against bureaucratic inertia and greedy relatives; and Third, for creating the Association of Dead People…

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“Anna asks. We write. Friday afternoon :)”

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Once upon a time…well, it was actually just a week ago, a beloved Sepia personality asked:

yay! I love Fast Fiction Fridays at the Mutiny. Can we do it again next week?

Of course we can, darling. “55 Fiction Friday” is a meme I’ve been faithful to for a while; I’m happy to infect the Mutiny with it.

For those of you who missed last week’s brilliance and have no idea what I’m going on about, the idea behind “Fast Fiction” is simple:

Flash fiction, also called sudden fiction, micro fiction, postcard fiction or short-short fiction, is a class of short story of limited word length. Definitions differ but is generally accepted that flash fiction stories are at most 200 to 1000 words in length. Ernest Hemingway wrote a six-word flash: “For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.” Traditional short stories are 2,000 to 10,000 words in length…One type of flash fiction is the short story with an exact word count. An example is 55 Fiction or Nanofiction. These are complete stories, with at least one character and a discernible plot, exactly 55 words long.[wiki]

More than a few bloggers have been writing a piece of nanofiction every Friday, for weeks.

I was elated at the response that my post on this meme inspired– comment after comment containing perfect little gems of story– we’d be crazy NOT to create a tradition out of such goodness.

What goodness it was. By the time I closed comments at the end of the weekend (a practice I think I’ll continue), we were in the triple digits.

Umair made me lightheaded when he channeled the book I love most:

Transported back to 1951, the thought of making money by betting on cricket matches yet to happen was for some strange reason furthest from my mind, which should give you a sense of just how at home I felt with the whole affair. But then: “I wish she’d married either Kabir or Amit. . .”

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Pakistani Soccer Hooligans?

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kick.jpg Caaaat Fiiiiighhht!! :

Pakistan’s women footballers, used to battling hardline Islamists opposed to their activity, ended up fighting themselves in a landmark final.
A mass brawl broke out after the award of a penalty in the first final of the National Women’s Football Championship in Islamabad’s Jinnah Stadium.

I wouldn’t want to get punched by one of those girls. Wait, if it was footie, why were they using their hands? That’s not allowed! 😉

“The girls of both teams freely kicked and punched each other. The catfight forced the tournament organisers to enter the ground and put an end to the brawl,” it reported.
The federation dismissed the incident as a “football flare-up” and said there would be no inquiry but images of the scuffles were widely covered in the local press.

Of course it was widely covered in the local press. The mens, they loves them some girl on girl action. Not that they got to see it live:

The women players were fully covered to avoid offending Muslim sensibilities and no male spectators were allowed.

Wha-? No men? Huh. I guess they were all covered up so that they wouldn’t offend the Muslim sensibilities of females or hermaphrodites, then.

Hell, why term it “Muslim sensibilities”?

Un-Muslim and insensible me was watching a football game last week when I noticed that the cheerleaders were essentially hopping about in bikinis. They looked like idiots. If you’re the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, that’s one thing…but the rest of you vomen of the NFL– rediscover the allure of a wee pleated skirt. Sheesh. Continue reading →