The Onion discovers India’s new tech-support caste:
“While we rank below members of the reigning order, those of us responsible for helping Americans track their online purchases and change their account PINs share many privileges not enjoyed by the merchant class below us.” (said technical-support agent Ranji Prasat). [The Onion]
The Onion: New tech-support caste arises in India
Ever seen Hanuman pluck a double bass? Animator Nina Paley has created a witty, ’20s jazz musical version of the Ramayana, Sita Sings the Blues (via Turbanhead). Her lovely, highly stylized characters evoke Betty Boop, Amul Butter ads and Ghee Happy, and Sita is voiced by ’20s blues singer Annette Hanshaw.
Watch the clips or, if the site is slow, see the end of the post to download.
This animation’s original title seems to have been The Sitayana. Like Anna’s feminist neologism, ‘Herstory,’ Paley had replaced Rama with Sita in the title. And she goes even further: Sita has the only speaking part in the entire animation. Rama is strong but silent, a Ken doll and essentially decorative, the inverse of most action flicks. But Paley stays reasonably faithful to the original text. Her Sita is still a maiden in distress rather than a Shrek-like princess-ninja.
Paley also inverts the Moulin Rouge formula. Instead of desi music in an American tale, she uses ’20s American music (one song even includes the banjo) in a quintessentially desi story. Her soundtrack choice is a classy touch; imagine someone doing a version like hip-hop Shakespeare, using Justin Timberlake as the soundtrack.
Shudder.
Punjabi Boy has quite a find about the new Pope’s views on Hindus and Buddhists:
Hinduism, he said, offers ‘false hope’; it guarantees ‘purification’ based on a ‘morally cruel’ concept of reincarnation resembling ‘a continuous circle of hell’…In 1997 Ratzinger annoyed Buddhists by calling their religion an ‘autoerotic spirituality’ that offers ‘transcendence without imposing concrete religious obligations’… The Cardinal predicted Buddhism would replace Marxism as the Catholic Church’s main enemy this century.
Ratzinger had even more choice words for those who are not Catholic:
… Dominus Jesus, the major Vatican document released… by Cardinal Ratzinger… called other world religions “gravely deficient,” denied that other religions can offer salvation independent of Christianity, and said non-Catholic Christian churches have “defects” and are not “churches” at all in the proper sense.
‘Enforcer,’ in the hockey sense, sounds about right.
Update: Ratzinger was apparently more sparing with Judaism (thanks, MD):
… Ratzinger played an instrumental role in the Vatican’s revolutionary reconciliation with the Jews under John Paul II. He personally prepared… [the] document outlining the church’s historical “errors” in its treatment of Jews…
When Dias turns into nights… Ratz! Cardinal Ivan Dias, the Mumbai mandarin, is outpolled by the Frankish Pope:
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected pope today, taking the name Benedict XVI, then telling a wildly cheering crowd from a balcony on St. Peter’s Basilica, “I entrust myself to your prayers.”
Rediff isn’t ready to bury the hatchet just yet:
He is known as ‘the Pope’s enforcer’ due to his uncompromising conservatism… Ratzinger was head of… the church’s chief think-tank that has dominated discussions on sexual morality and birth control and prevented liberals from gaining ground.
Got that? An Indian publication’s chiding the Vatican for being too conservative.
On balance, it’s a good thing that Dias didn’t prevail. The cardinals’ traditional cry of ‘habemus papam,’ or ‘we have a Pope,’ might have been changed to ‘habemus papad,’ or ‘we have a crispy pre-meal appetizer.’
Here’s Ennis’ post on the blasphemous betting.
Residents in Calcutta, India have married together a pair of trees in hopes of warding off evil:
The marriage between the sacred trees — whose trunks were decorated with red cloth, streaks of vermilion and marigold garlands — was followed by a banquet attended by nearly 1,000 people. [Reuters/Yahoo!]
Proving once and for all that it doesn’t really matter who, or even what, is getting married — an Indian wedding will always be way too big.
Reuters/Yahoo!: Indians ‘marry’ sacred trees to ward off evil eye
Abhi’s post about the Prom got me thinking about the non-trivial number of Christians I’ve met over the years who follow desi-like restrictive dating rituals. One friend of mine went no further than holding hands with his intended until they got engaged! Two seconds (literally) on Google yielded a (white American) group that proposes something very similar to “modern arranged marriages”
Let’s be honest for a minute, when we were looking for a spouse, we looked at all the wrong things. All the guys look for is how the girl looks. All the girl looks at is whether or not the guy is nice to her. Single people have a very poor track record in looking for the important characteristics of the heart when they are looking for a mate. On the other hand, there is nobody who knows children like their parents do (except God). So, parents will know the character traits of their children; their strong and weak areas, their likes and dislikes, and their personality. As such, the parents are in a position to make a more accurate evaluation of the compatibility of a particular man, or women with their own kids. Please note, I’m not talking about the parents choosing a mate without the child’s participation in the decision. What I’m saying is that the best possible decision will be made when the parents and child work together … If either they, or us as parents see a possibility in someone, we will mention it. Then, we will investigate that person, to find out everything we can about them and their family. If they still look like a possible candidate for marriage after this investigation, we will go together to talk with that possible mate and his or her parents. [cite]
The Neo-Taliban running Pakistan’s fundamentalist parties aren’t content with banning food at weddings. Now they’ve figured out how to recruit more sexually-repressed young men. They want to ban all ads featuring women:
Last week the six-party religious alliance that constitutes one-fifth of the country’s parliament, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) introduced a bill in parliament seeking a complete ban on women in advertising… It proposes one-year imprisonment for any ad agency that uses women models…
The neobans (for banning is what they do) want to turn the clock back to when only men could perform in public, teaching an entire generation of boys to dress in drag. They yearn for when NAMBLA-like encounters were the norm as long as female chastity was protected. Of course, women were treated as mere property and were at much higher risk of rape and murder, but it was all in the name of purity, right? It was all for the noble goal of keeping people’s minds off sex… by depriving them of it.
Yeah, that worked out well. About as well as another movement which went against fundamental human nature.
Of course, the neobans won’t be content with banning female images. They’ll go after the right of women to drive, then to vote. All Pakistan would be left with is rifle-toting bullies in pickup trucks beating up men without beards and women without burqas. Been there, done that, seen it on F*dCountry.com.
The more that a religious strain teaches personal spirituality, the less that political middlemen can manipulate the faithful.
You’re in a restaurant or airplane, and someone’s rat-bastard tot will not stop crying at the top of their lungs. There’s something you can do about it, as long as you’re willing to risk arrest:
Indian police have charged 80 people for burying children alive in an ancient Hindu ceremony known as “the festival of pits.” The ceremony, in which children — some less than a year old — are buried alive briefly and then dug up, happened on Monday in southern Tamil Nadu state, The Asian Age reported on Thursday. [Reuters/Yahoo!]
Reuters/Yahoo!: Indians
charged for burying children alive
For your kitschy pleasure:
‘Indian God.’ A music vid of Ganesh as petulant recording artist.
I’m a fuckin’ Indian god, baby that’s a fact
I’m a fuckin’ Indian god, girl I want you baaack
How can you leave an Indian god, baby that’s fucked up…Fuckin’ Indian god, man, you can’t leave that.
It’s too good, mmm!
He said he’s an Indian god, baby, not a fuckin’ songwriter. Watch the video.
‘Handy Hindus’ finger puppets. They’re Hindu gods done up Elmo / Sesame Street style in cheap plastic.
‘Hindi Bendy’ toy. Here’s a quick way to make money: take a boring old toy, slap on a bindi and add some extra arms.
Here’s their entire section of Hindu products; Archie McPhee sells novelty products by mail-order:
“I study customer’s actual orders. I see 100 voodoo dolls going to a software firm in Palo Alto. What does this mean? A Manhattan buyer wants every nun and Catholic religious item we carry and wants them by air. What’s the rush? And here’s yet another order to Japan. What are they doing over there with all this glow-in-the-dark string they order?”
Lest you think they specifically tweak Hindus, you should see the rabbi punching puppet and the bobble-headed Jesus. They don’t sell Islamic novelties, can’t imagine why.
Sounds like a cocktail, no? Pixar artist Sanjay Patel illustrates Hindu mythology in a style reminiscent of Suck, Demian 5, Virgin and Bewitched (thanks, Turbanhead). It’s gorgeous work, although his Rama does look a bit much like Hrithik Roshan, and any kid-safe interpretation of Kali is bound to cross the line into kitsch.
Patel’s site says he came up with its name, Ghee Happy, via obscure analogy: reducing the rich strokes of Hindu iconography to their essence is like clarifying butter into ghee. He self-published a children’s book of Hindu gods and also sells 11″x17″ prints on his site. Check it out if you have any little ones in need of full-color indoctrination or just dig the visual style.
Update: Drawn has more (thanks, Harry). A commenter there says:
We were actually joking with Sanjay that he SHOULD do this with every religion, but I guess the problem with the monotheistic religions is that there would only be ONE page in the book…