Category Archives: Profiles

Guest Blogger: In Which Vivek Shares Some Roti With Us

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I know that you, like me, may be sad today: Lost is over, and that means no more Sayid–no more curly-haired desi smartypants!

But I’m here to tell you it’s going to be okay: here at SM we have discovered his doppelganger.

vivek.jpg

This is Vivek.

You might recognize him: he’s been an SM comment thread regular, and he’s one of the co-founders of Pass The Roti on the Left-Hand Side. (The all-growed-up version of him does bear a resemblance to Naveen Andrews.)

He is funny and smart and incisive and an excellent writer, and even better than all those things, he is generous and kind! The blogosphere needs more of all of these things! So we thought we’d invite him into the bunker for awhile.

Vivek was born in Madras, grew up in Tucson, and resides in New York. He makes a living as an “IT dork” (his words) and also cooks a mean mutton biryani. Like me, he plays the saxophone. Bunker jam session shortly.

Welcome, Vivek. It’s gonna be fun sharing Interwebs with you. Continue reading →

Who was “The Great Oom?”

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The Houston bureau of Sepia Mutiny (our southernmost outpost) has shuttered its doors, a casualty of the economic upheaval. The Houston bureau chief (me) has returned to Los Angeles to rejoin our offices there. One of the things I will miss most about Houston in my yoga teacher/class. A good yoga place is hard to find (even in the “yoga capital” of the U.S.). And isn’t it wonderful how so many of you nodded your heads in agreement just now. For many of us, finding the right yoga class is as important, and as difficult, as finding the right doctor. On the airplane to Los Angeles last night I read a blurb in a magazine that made me aware that many of us owe a debt of gratitude to one Pierre Arnold Bernard (a.k.a. The Great Oom). He had a significant hand in ensuring that Yoga is now essentially a part of everyday American culture:

… men and women came to his ashram on the Hudson River, two hundred acres of leafy real estate in Nyack, New York, that included a zoo, a yacht, airplanes and a dozen mansions that Mitchell could only describe as the “English countryside estates one sees in the moving pictures.” Bernard had made his fortune teaching yoga, and his students made up a Who’s Who of American life: college presidents, medical doctors, ministers, a spy or two, theologians, heiresses, a future congresswoman, famed authors and composers — some of the wealthiest and most influential people in the world. Doctor Bernard, they called him, and like a benevolent physician he ministered to their needs, body and soul. He sheltered them, entertained them and gathered them together to teach them the art of living. They stood on their heads for him, worked in his fields, sang in his theatrical productions and performed in elaborate, professional-level circuses for his approval. Some of them came to delve deeply into hatha yoga and the philosophy behind it, some for romance and fresh air, some for the Bernard cure, having been abandoned by hospitals and mental institutions. These he literally led back from ruination — from ledges of despair, lethal addictions and Great War nightmares. How he managed to do this has remained his closely guarded secret…

But who was he, really, this uneducated savant who could lecture extemporaneously for three hours on the similarities between the philosophies of ancient India and the Gnostic heresies of the early Christians? This same man was known to stage a three-ring circus, manage a semi-pro baseball team, train a world-class heavyweight boxer, repair a Stanley Steamer automobile and whoop it up on fight nights at Madison Square Garden with nicotine-stained reporters. This last was where he was most at home, some said, shouting, swearing, happily chomping on a cigar. Who was this man of such wild contradictions, a name as familiar to headline writers of the 1920s as Charles Lindbergh? The answer depended to a large degree on who was doing the asking. [NYT]

Continue reading →

Rasika Mathur Skates Into the Moshpit

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the_three.jpg Kick, kick, push…. went our Sector 9 skateboards along the coast of the beach of Santa Barbara; my board was painted with surf waves, and hers was appropriately painted with an image of Ganesh. I was skating with Rasika Mathur, comedian, actress, and funny person extraordinaire. When I found out that Rasika was a skater chick, I knew that I just had to conduct our interview while skateboarding on the beach.

You may have seen her on MTV’s sketch comedy show Wild N Out or on the film festival circuit promoting her rap music sari tutorial, Sari (W)rap. Or maybe you’ve seen her in character as Nilam Auntie in a viral video. I caught up with Rasika just after she had just flown back from being on set in Ohio for The Taqwacores motion picture. Directed by Eyad Zahra, the movie was adapted from Michael Muhammad Knight’s fictitious book The Taqwacores and will be premiering on January 24th at the Sundance Film Festival. The movie revolves around the lives of punk rock Muslim characters that live in a punk house in upstate New York and their subsequent exploration of identity and shenanigans. The movie features Maxim sexpot Noureen Dewulf playing the burqa clad riot grrl Rabeya as well as featuring American Dreamz Tony Yalda playing the flamboyant Muzzamil (on the right in above picture), amongst others.

Playing the role of the activist Muslim punk chick character Fatima is Rasika Mathur. I first met up with her before she left for the movie set. She wanted some inspiration for her character, so I hung out with her for a day, taking her to the mosque and teaching her about “DIY”, “NOFX” and “circle pits” . I made her promise when she returned from set, that in exchange, I’d get a Sepia Mutiny exclusive interview. So here it is, my interview with Rasika Mathur.

On working on a “Muslim” focused movie, after being raised in a Hindu home:

It really helped me to expand my mind and break my perceptions. You took me to a mosque so that I could get some real hardcore research and so that I could get what the heck this book was describing this whole time. Maybe the best thing that people can do to become tolerant is to literally put themselves in other people’s shoes by doing a film. Because you have to study what the role is and I shifted my perception by doing this. Continue reading →

The Deaf Muslim Punk Playwright: Interview with Sabina England

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She writes plays, directs and acts in comedy mime skits, moshes in punk pits and reads lips. Sabina England is a 20-something Midwest girl that fits no typecast. I stumbled across Sabina on twitter as the @DeafMuslim when all Taqwacore scenesters would retweet her plays and videos. I was already curious about the Deaf Desi community since meeting a few in DC, but was even more intrigued after checking out her site, her comedy skits and reading the stories and plays on her blog. How could I not be? I sat down (virtually) for a fascinating interview where she talks about acting as Helen Keller in a high school play, to having a Mohawk and wearing hijab, to prejudices against the deaf community by fellow Desis.

You have written a few plays, with some relatively controversial content. How do people react to your plays?

It varies. No matter what Muslims do, every time a Muslim makes a film or writes a play or whatever about Pakistanis or Indians or w/e who aren’t “typical” they still get hate about it. It makes me so mad. Some Muslims ask me why do I write about “Muslim whores” and I’m like, why the fuck not? They exist. My sister hates my plays and always complains why am I “weird” and why can’t I write “normal” plays. Some feminists are offended by my plays, but I get mostly great feedback from women about my plays because I tend to write strong, interesting female characters.

> I don’t have any of my plays on videos; my videos are just comedy sketches. They’re very different from my plays, my plays are very dark; I call them “tragicomedies”. I had a play run in London on late September to early October for 3 weeks. The next project I have, my play (the same play, called [*How the Rapist was Born*](http://deadamericandream.blogspot.com/2009/09/how-rapist-was-born.html)) will be staged at East 15 in England on May 2010 with a different director and cast. I am trying to get my plays produced in NYC, but the truth is NYC’s theater scene isn’t as vibrant as London so I’ve had my eyes and heart set on London for a long time. Recently I read an article some weeks ago, a lot of critics and journalists have declared that this is The Golden Age of British theater right now in London. I want to be part of it. Continue reading →

And There’s Another One. Hansen Clarke.

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Hansen Clarke.jpgAt first there was Gov. Bobby Jindal from Louisiana. Then there was Nikki Haley from South Carolina. Now, there is a new contender in the Desi-Running-For-Governor category. Hansen Clarke from Michigan announced today that he is running for Governor in 2010.

State Sen. Hansen Clarke tossed his hat in the race for the Democratic nomination for governor Tuesday, only hours after Lt. Gov. John Cherry withdrew from the race, vowing “no more excuses and no more passing the buck.” The 52-year-old Detroit Democrat, [joins] an increasingly crowded primary field…[michiganmessenger]

> Clarke served six years in the House before being elected twice to the Senate. A lawyer, he also ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Detroit. [[chicagotribune](http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-mi-governorsrace-cl,0,4191053.story)] I know what you are thinking. He’s 52?!?!? At least, that’s what everyone around me is saying. I like to think Desis age well. And yes, he is Desi. Bangladeshi, to be accurate. > Hansen Hashem Clarke… was first elected to the Michigan State Senate in 2002 and re-elected in 2006. He is son of Mozaffar Ali Hashem, a Bangladeshi, and Telma Ali, an US citizen. His father was born at Sridhara village of Beani Bazar upazila in Sylhet district. [[newnation](http://nation.ittefaq.com/issues/2008/01/02/news0109.htm)] >

> An only child, Hansen Clarke grew up in a working class neighborhood on Detroit’s lower east side. His father passed away when he was only eight years old and his mother supported the family with a job as a school crossing guard. Food stamps helped fill in the gaps. [[michigansenate](http://www.senate.michigan.gov/clarke/about.php)] In 2007, Hansen went with the [Bangladeshi American Public Affairs Committee (BAPAC)](http://www.bapac-us.org/) to Bangladesh. Here’s [a video of him speaking ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDSeF3YyOvY)to his father’s village on that trip and it seems like [he’s trying to build a partnership with Bangladesh](http://nation.ittefaq.com/issues/2008/01/02/news0109.htm) (though how much of it is campaign talk, who knows). Continue reading →

Desi Women of the Decade: Poll #4

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Desi Women of Decade.jpg

Back in my younger mutinous days, when I was the youngest in the bunker, I wrote this post on “cool” desi women under the age of 30. I wrote it because I wanted to highlight other Desi American women in my age range who were “doing something”. A list like that didn’t exist then. We have since had many more young folk added to the mutinous blog roll in the bunker and there are even more Desi women than ever doing amazing things.

I too am jumping on the ’00 decade list making band wagon. In the past decade, I went from being a nascent 20 year old to a pseudo-mature 30 yr old. But more significantly, I think of how in 2000, as a desi girl in the U.S., I didn’t have any South Asian American females that I could turn to – as role models, as women breaking barriers, as women in the media. It was alienating and isolating, to not see Desi women breaking glass ceilings. I didn’t realize that there were things that desi girls could do outside of the “model minority job list” – I had no one really to look towards. In these past ten years, the South Asian American community has grown with leaps and bounds. Strong desi women have coming out of the wood works. They are on big screens, on the shelves of major book stores, and profiled in the news. Desi women are running for office, going to space, starting and directing non-profits, and running companies. I am so proud of to be a Desi woman of this decade, to be a part of a community giving the next generation of Desi girls role models to look up to.

So here is my mutinous list of the top 20 most influential South Asian American Women of the Decade (in alphabetical order). Please vote on the woman that you feel has been most influential to you in the poll at the bottom of the post. Continue reading →

Cabbie Conflict

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Pema Sharpa.jpgBack in grad school, I worked on a report with the LA Taxi Workers Alliance interviewing cabbies about their work and living conditions. The stories that I heard were deeply human about personal lives and labor conditions. It was common to hear stories of cabbies that would lease their cabs at outrageous daily costs. Often one cab is driven by two drivers, one taking a day shift, the other the night shift, working solid 7 days a week.

The New York Times covered a tragic story, between two Nepalese taxi drivers sharing the same cab in New York City.

Each man had come from Nepal over the past decade, and attended the same taxi-training school in Jackson Heights. For a year, they had split the $1,400-per-week leasing fee on a yellow cab, Medallion 6M83, trading 12-hour shifts behind the wheel, seven days a week.

Mr. Sherpa, 28, drove days, chauffeuring strivers bound for business meetings, power lunches and auditions. Mr. Chhantyal, 30, shepherded the denizens of New York’s nightlife, the decadent and the dangerous.[nyt]

The day shift driver, Sherpa, had a happier life with a wife and baby girl at home whereas night shift driver Chhantyal had a much more depressing life. It also turned out that Sherpa had just secured a car loan that would soon make him a taxi owner and Chhantyal would become his employee.

Mr. Sherpa received Mr. Chhantyal’s usual wake-up call at 4 a.m. on Sept. 12… Typically Mr. Chhantyal, to avoid complications from one-way streets, would park and wait for Mr. Sherpa on busy Broadway, which comes to life early with cabs and service vehicles headed toward Manhattan. But on this morning, Mr. Sherpa saw that his partner had parked on deserted, residential 62nd Street. As usual, Mr. Chhantyal stepped out to give Mr. Sherpa the driver’s seat. But, strangely, he let the door close and lock. As Mr. Sherpa fished for his duplicate key, he recalled, he felt the first blow.

That September morning on a Queens sidewalk, Mr. Chhantyal finally had the upper hand, swinging the cleaver that he and his roommates used to chop vegetables. Until Mr. Sherpa, on his back, somehow managed to kick the big blade from his hands, sending it skidding under the cab. Continue reading →

Man Builds Shed

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Everyone (well every guy I know) seems to be talking about the Walden-esque profile of former TARP Czar Neel Kashkari in Sunday’s Washington Post. The article/profile is a thing to behold. More a short story than article really. It is difficult to ascertain whether the author is satirizing an Icarus-like fall from grace with her ridiculously over-the-top description of Kashkari’s self-exile into the woods, or whether she is being earnest. If the former, “bravo” I say. You have brilliantly portrayed our South Asian male, 30s-mid-life-crisis angst. If the latter, then…well, where to begin? The stubble would be a good place. A man’s stubble, more often than not, has a good story behind it:

He wears no coat though it’s freezing, shines no light though it’s near midnight, carries no shotgun though he’s tramping on the pine-needled tracks of black bears….

The moon hits his stubble, which is six days old. And the sweater he hasn’t changed in three or four days. His BlackBerry — he can’t kick it — rang once today. A year ago in D.C., it buzzed every few seconds. All night, he’d roll over to its bluish glow. His Treasury Department assistant slept with hers, powered up, on her pillow. [Link]

The article goes on to describe a young and gung-ho aerospace enginerd, who first goes into the heart of Wall Street, and then on to Oz (a.k.a. Washington D.C.) with his powerful mentor. They had me hooked at the aerospace enginerd part. Kashkari is a man we can all get behind. He is the everyman in a $700 billion story. But our hero begins to learn that Oz is nothing but a shimmering illusion and all the knives are soon drawn upon him:

Congress savaged him. Wall Street Journal editorials doubted him. His home-town buddies urged him to use the money to buy the Cleveland Browns and fire the coaches. His wife spoke to him so rarely, she described them as “dead to each other.” He lost sleep, gained weight and saw a close adviser, Don Hammond, suffer a heart attack at his Treasury desk. On May 1, after serving seven months under Presidents Bush and Obama, he resigned. [Link]

Continue reading →

A New Slant on Life

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Last month, the hard rock band Slant dropped their second self-titled album on to the scene. Based out of Southern California, Slant is foursome band with two Bengali guys (Fahim – lead singer, Munir – guitars) and two Russian brothers (Ilya – bass, Andrew – drums). I’ve seen the incredible growth of Slant over the years, from when teenage Fahim used to play guitar in his mother’s living room to seeing him perform on stage years later at the world famous Roxy on Sunset.

In the latest album, you can hear the maturity to their sound – the musical composition is richer sounding than their first album, and the hard rock sound is soulfully anthem-ic without sounding narcissistic. You can read a detailed album review here. I’m not much of a rock music fan (unless there’s a punk in front of it) but I do appreciate Slant’s latest album, particularly the song Beautiful Angel, a song about a family friend of ours that was brutally murdered a couple years ago.

You can download both Slant’s first album ‘A Thin Line’ and their second self-titled album off of iTunes or CDBaby now. But, exclusively for Sepia Mutiny readers, the first person that responds in the comment section with the name of three cities in Europe that Slant has performed, will get an autographed copy of their latest album (don’t forget to leave your e-mail).

I spoke with lead singer Fahim Zaman and guitarist Munir Haque about dropping their second album, the inspirations and their journey to making this album. You can read it below!

For those that don’t know Slant, who are you guys?

Fahim: We are a hard rock/alternative/progressive group made up of two Bengali guys raised in Southern California and two Russian brothers raised here, that are attempting to bring forth and change the world with our “slant” on rock music 🙂
Continue reading →

In 2010, Desis Are Taking Over Congress

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Dalip Singh.jpgWe are now less than twelve months away from the next big election, the 2010 Midterm Elections. Another election? I know, I know. It feels a little too soon. But on November 2, 2010 elections will be held for at least 36 of the 100 seats for US Senate, all 435 seats for the US House of Representative, and a Governor’s race in 36 states.

This election is particularly significant because there are six South Asian candidates running for a seat in US Congress. To give a little context, the first person of Indian origin to hold a congressional seat was Dalip Singh Saund (D-CA) who served representing California from 1953-1967. the next one didn’t get elected until almost 50 years later. It was Bobby Jindal (R-LA), who served from 2004 – 2007, after which he got elected as Governor for Louisiana.

Here’s the congressional candidate run through: Raj Goyle (D-KS), Manan Trivedi, (D- PA), Ami Bera (D-CA), Ravi Sangisetty (D-LA), Reshma Sejauni (D- NY) and Surya Yalamanchili (I-OH). And they are all YOUNG, ranging in age from 27 to 40 yrs old.

rajgoyle.jpgRaj Goyle – Kansas, 4th Congressional District

Represents the 87th District of Kansas House of Representatives since 2007. Attorney and a lecturer at Wichita State University. (Past SM post here.)

Raj graduated from Duke University and then Harvard Law School where in addition to his legal studies, he founded a technology company with two classmates that taught him the importance of entrepreneurship.After law school, Raj clerked for a federal judge and then as an advocate for better schools, improved voting rights for the disabled, and as an expert on homeland security issues. [rajforkansas]

amibera.JPGDr. Amerish ‘Ami’ Bera – California, 3rd Congressional District

Physician and former chief medical officer of Sacramento County’s Primary Health Care system.

The core planks of my campaign are as follows – We must build a health care system that has a compassionate baseline that is available and accessible for every American. Second, we must rebuild our educational system to teach students to think and make sure it’s flexible enough to allow for many career paths, from trades, to technology, to college. Third, we must create an economy that rewards employment and creates career pathways that allow for a secure and sustainable future over a lifetime. And last, we must have an environmental and energy policy that builds for generations to come. [ssvms]

Reshma Saujani.JPGReshma Saujani – New York, 14th Congressional District

Lawyer, community activist (and former SAAVY board member!)

She’s the daughter of immigrants who fled from violence in Uganda, and has degrees from Harvard and Yale. Saujani reportedly interned in the White House at the same time as Monica Lewinsky. By the age of 28, Saujani had established herself politically as an effective fund-raiser for John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign. At the time, she was quoted as saying, “I’ll be into active politics myself in a few years. I hope to become a Senator someday.” [nyobserver] Continue reading →