Designer Naeem Khan showed his Fall 2012 collection at New York Fashion week. Worn by the FLOTUS and on the red carpet, his work is often in the public spotlight. Titled “The Body As A Canvas: From the Mughal Paisley to the Hindu Tilakas” the show brought Indian-inspired bling to the runway.

The Washington Post writes that “there was so much beading that the audience in the front row could hear the pieces chiming against each other as the models walked.”

The New York Times India Ink interviews Khan and asks about the inspiration behind his latest work.

Q. What was your inspiration for your Fall line?

A. It’s all about the decadence and dust of India. The white circles and dots on some of the dresses are the patterns the Sadhus use on their bodies- I actually hand painted them on myself. A lot of the patterns are from body painting. I looked at tribal India and made it luxurious by using rich fabrics. This is the dust aspect. Then the paisley patterns on some of the pieces represent the decadence in India. So I’ve taken one element from the two sides and created a whole collection out of it.

Read the rest of the interview at India Ink. View all 39 looks in the collection, including this one-shouldered showstopper, at NYMag.com.

But you don’t have to take my word for it – the album Feel Free is available … well, for free. So download it for free now!  

Two things I love about Spills. First, I love that he was part of an acoustic dub/hip hop duo called Two Dirty Desis. And the second is this:

For those who want to delve further into his creative mind, Feel Free Ableton session files will be available to be used in any way, shape or form on February 21, 2012. On his decision to release the Ableton files, Spills remarked:

“Honestly, I would have never even thought to give away ALL the session files… some would say a hip hop producer is only as good as his samples and synths. But that whole Internet black out thing to protest government and corporate censorship really inspired me – made me realize that we’re only as powerful as our connections to each other. So everyone should feel free to do with this project whatever they want … go nuts.”

You heard him. Go nuts!

Why did you feel you had to write Outdated: Why Dating Is Ruining Your Love Life? And why this particular title?

I wrote Outdated because I couldn’t believe how profoundly ignorant mainstream books on dating were and I couldn’t believe that no one had already written a book discussing how deeply problematic the assumptions about gender and love were in them. I felt the young women in our generation deserved something better.

If a girl had the opportunity to read one chapter in this book, what would it be and why?

Depends on how old that girl is, but probably the chapter on casual sex (Chapter 8: “Naughty Girls Need Love Too”). It is hard to find Real Talk on the pressures young women feel today to act a certain way sexually and parse through the messages to figure out what they really want.

How does your book speak to desi women, who find themselves pressured by both their families/culture and mainstream media?

I wrote the book from my point of view and I’m a South Asian woman, child of immigrants, and also an activist, feminist, and a whole assortment of other things. I think as a result many people from varying backgrounds will relate to my book. I didn’t gear the book specifically to the South Asian community but also didn’t shy away from talking about my experience as a South Asian woman. The world we live in is complicated and we are all bringing a diversity of experiences to it–will some parts of this book resonate more with some South Asian women? Probably–but it probably resonates mainly with anyone that has a more radical take on romance.

 Were you nervous about using your own experiences in your book?

Yes, my goodness. Did you read my dedication*? I specifically dedicated it to my mother apologizing in advance for the contents of the book.

*Dedication: “To Ma, for sacrificing everything so I could have the opportunity to ask the questions you never had the luxury to ask. (I also dedicate this to you with the hope that you don’t’ kill me after reading its contents.)

 Do you still date? Did you find it affected your post-book dating experiences?

Yes, I still date quite a bit and yes and no. If anything people want to know what it took for someone to get included in the book. I think people are fascinated by the subject more then anything.

Tell us about your Occupy Valentine’s Day movement.

Occupy Valentine’s Day is a tumblr and is in essence a media campaign to give people space to creatively express their frustrations with the narrow and limiting ways we think about love and romance especially on Valentine’s Day.

P.S. Readers, share the story of your worst Valentine’s date in the comments below and I’ll send one lucky person a copy of Outdated.

P.P.S. It’s not too late to submit your entries to the Occupy Valentine’s Day tumblr!

For you poetry noobs, a haiku is a Japanese verse form that employs sentences in the 5-7-5-syllable pattern.  Last year, we received a number of heartfelt entries from our readers. (And quite a few deliciously cheeky ones. Amitava, I’m looking at your “Size does not matter, you say. This small haiku in place of my — uhmmm — love” piece.) Come on, you can do it, mutineers. Give it a shot. Your Valentine will thank you.

Deadline: Submit all Valentine’s Day haikus in the comments below by 1PM on Friday, February 10. Please include an email address in your comments so that we can notify the winner.

2012 Theme: Love, ishq, pyar, mohabbatein, kadhal, prema, premam, et. al.

Winner: Winner will be announced in the comments on Tuesday,  February 14, 2012.

Judge: Amitava Kumar – writer, journalist and professor of English at Vassar college.

Prize: Winner gets a copy of The 50 Greatest Love Letters of All Time, along with a personalized, handmade Valentine containing their haiku – mailed to the person of their choice (mom, dad, sis, BFF, bf, gf, yourself, etc.) by Valentine’s Day.

British actor Raza Jaffrey plays Dev Sundaram, the live-in boyfriend of main character/Broadway actress Karen Cartwright (played by former American Idol contestant Katharine McPhee). Jaffrey’s best known for his role as Zafar Younis in the BBC drama Spooks.

From his character’s mini-bio on the show’s official website:

Devan “Dev” Sundaram was born in Wimbledon in the United Kingdom, but has split his time with relatives in Queens for much of his life and has lived in New York City for several years. With a B.A. in Classics and Political Science from Oxford University and M.A.s in Communications (from Columbia University) and International Relations and Journalism (from NYU), Dev has worked as Deputy Press Secretary in Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s office since 2010. He lives in Lower Manhattan with his girlfriend, Karen Cartwright.

Masters degrees plural. Of course. It will be interesting to see how the show portrays New York’s South Asian community and, since the show films in New York, to see if they visit any notable landmarks. I also wonder if there will be any subplots involving the character’s relatives in Queens. I only caught a few minutes of the episode, so I don’t have an opinion on the show yet. The entire pilot episode can be seen here.

Charles Dickens would have turned 200 today. If you haven’t read his books, here is the digested read. At the request of BBC World Service I wrote a brief reminiscence recalling my experience reading Dickens in my childhood. Here is the longer version of what I recorded for them:

Children have lurid imaginations. They don’t need much help imagining misfortune. But if you are aware of poverty, or see suffering around you, Charles Dickens can be a boon. This is because he is so good at populating that stricken landscape with indelible characters outfitted with violent habits and unforgettable names.

I grew up in a small town in India. The novels of Charles Dickens, in abridged form, were required reading in schools. My uncles on my mother’s side worked in prisons. I could look up from a page of Great Expectations and see the convicts working in the house, sweeping a stone courtyard or feeding the cows. Each man, clad in white khadi with blue stripes, would have an iron manacle around his ankle. I went back to the page I was reading, but now troubled by the thought that soon one of them would be beside me, asking me to fetch a file.

In the books that we read, a dramatic pencil illustration would be printed every few pages, with a line from the novel serving as a caption.

“Please, Sir, I want some more.” That line was Dickens’s gift to me.

At bus-stops, in the homes of less well-off relatives, outside tea-stalls, I looked at the faces of other children as they regarded food that was displayed, or that someone else was eating, and I’d think back to the line I had read in Oliver Twist.

In the new shining India, 42.5 percent of its children suffer from malnutrition. The term “Dickensian” evokes cold dark workplaces and cramped rooms. It doesn’t belong to the India of teeming cities with soaring flyovers and glittering multirise buildings. Yet, you can still look at the stunted children and remember, without sentimentality, that old line from Dickens: “Please, Sir, I want some more.”

…a member of M.I.A.’s camp, speaking Sunday night from the Super Bowl host city of Indianapolis, said M.I.A. was struck with “a case of adrenaline.” “She wasn’t thinking,” said the source, who requested anonymity but was with the artist at Lucas Oil Stadium. “It wasn’t any kind of statement. She was caught in the moment and she’s incredibly sorry.” [link]

So, it wasn’t a political statement – she was caught in the moment. She has yet to issue an actual apology. The song itself, as I mentioned before, is pretty lame and a brown middle finger was the highlight of that tune. The full SuperBowl halftime show was, on the other hand, pretty awe inducing.

As for M.I.A. and her brown finger. Well, everyone is stumbling to point the blame finger at someone else.

NBC has apologized for airing footage of M.I.A. flipping off the cameras while delivering the line “I don’t give a shit” during Madonna‘s Super Bowl halftime show. “The NFL hired the talent and produced the halftime show,” NBC said in a statement to the Hollywood Reporter. “Our system was late to obscure the inappropriate gesture and we apologize to our viewers.”

The NFL have also issued an apology for the incident, but placed the blame on NBC’s censors. “There was a failure in NBC’s delay system,” spokesman Brian McCarthy said in a statement. “The obscene gesture in the performance was completely inappropriate, very disappointing, and we apologize to our fans.” [link]

How bad was it? Compared to Janet Jackson’s flash or the controversial kiss between Madonna and Brittany Spears, I’d say pretty insignificant. And compared to the misogynistic SuperBowl commercials, I’d say it was refreshing to have M.I.A.’s rebellious voice (finger?) heard (seen?). I like what Sasha had to say about it:

Fine, it may not be legal to flip the bird on television, but that’s simply a remnant of the fifties we haven’t shaken. Unless somebody was handing out Xanax with the foam fingers, Lucas Oil Stadium was ringing with the music of profanities last night. More to the point, television viewers were submitted to ad after ad that likened women—negatively—to sofas, cars, and candy. Mr. Winter didn’t have anything to say about that, so I’d like to raise both of my middle fingers to him and anyone who thinks profanity is somehow more harmful to our children than images of violence and misogyny. [link]

M.I.A. Flipping the Camera and Back Up Dancers with Their Crotches Up

The song is great, but I absolutely LOVE this video – if only because I can imagine Saudi women blasting this rebellious song as they drive unlawfully through the desert. The stunts are pretty legit and gritty without the Hollywood flair too. I feel as if “Bad Girls” skips over Vicki Leex mixtape and goes back to the world orientalist flavor of the Kala days of M.I.A.. I loved the Kala days.

The video, directed by Romain Gavras (see: M.I.A.’s “Born Free”) was shot in Ouarzazate, Morocco, and premiered exclusively on VICE’s new music channel Noisey. The short features daring car stunts that had M.I.A. terrified the entire time.[huffpost]

“It was dope to have so many people from so many different backgrounds speaking so many different languages come together to create something that we believed in,” says M.I.A about the video. “I thought I was gonna die on the shoot when I saw the drifting.  It was a four day shoot so everyone was on edge the whole time specifically ME when I had to do bluesteel singing to the camera while the cars did doughnuts on the wet road ten feet away. In my mind I was thinking how I was gonna deliver the video to Vice with no legs.” [bizjournals]

But, yo… this track that just premiered with Madonna and Nicki Minaj though leaves a bad taste in my mouth. They dress Nicki and MIA to be cheerleaders and give them a two line rap? And what’s with the blonde wigs to make them look like Madonna/Marilyn? Oh so bad. Video after the jump.

So what do you think? Is this M.I.A.’s swansong or a comeback?

–

Legend: Phillygrrl Nilanjana Sugi Vivek

There are times when Paris is (unwillingly) touched by other cultures. (“Stop touching me!” “I’m not touching you! I’m not touching you!”) (Touché! Sorry, couldn’t resist.) The touch may be temporary — like a spritz of (jasmine? can it be jasmine?) perfume. (There’s always the possibility of sandalwood. Or… even better for the hippie love fest, Patchouli!!!!!) Or it can open up a well-established world hiding in plain sight. (Like a woman in a burka?! Sign me up!)

This, by the way, has nothing to do with how Paris has clobbered other cultures.

Because I just noticed, This is Paris’s India moment.

In December, Karl Lagerfeld took inspiration from India for his Paris-Bombay collection for Chanel, which included Nehru jackets, sweaters that draped like saris and opulent beading and embroidery. (Hermès! Don’t forget the actual saris lovingly targeting the Indian luxury market. I want.) “Paris-Delhi-Bombay,” which examined India through the prism of 50 Indian and French artists, was the Centre Pompidou’s most ambitious exhibition (no, really, taking on India was really going out on a limb) of the past year. And on Jan. 27, the Petit Palais museum will display nearly 100 paintings and designs by Rabindranath Tagore, the Bengali poet who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Having begun to paint late in life, he created a large body of works on paper — bold, bright, jungle-like! tropical! visions of fantasy and inscrutable mystery. (As the spawn of Tagore-o-philes, I’ll note that the man had also had a blue period, i.e. not so bright. But Asian people are all om happy and peaceful, so let’s not talk about that.)

In fact, Paris has long contained spicy hot pockets of Indian culture. Soo, how long has Paris’s India moment been going on, exactly? The Musée Guimet, for example, houses a small but serious collection of Indian art, including sculptures of wood, clay, basalt, bronze, sandstone and schist dating from as early as the third millennium B.C.

There’s good shopping, too. (Forget art, I’m all about the shopping.) Mandalas, one of my favorite boutiques in Paris, and where I bring visitors looking for gifts, is not French but Indian-Tibetan. For about 30 euros, you can find the most beautiful drop earrings with semiprecious stones from Jaipur. (Yaks, camels, it’s all the same. Speaking of… I so love momos!!!! Damn. Now I’m hungry.) And at Le Cachemirien, a shop in the heart of Saint Germain, Rosenda Meer sells some of the finest cashmere in Paris. A double-sided shawl — moss green on one side and muted rust on the other — costs 1,500 euros (or 5 if you go to the street corner, but then what would I have to brag about?).

Yet if you know where to look (and of course I do), there is a more complex picture of Indian Paris just beyond the gemstones. The French had a reed-thin colonial connection to the subcontinent, and in 1674, on behalf of Louis XIV, they negotiated the creation of a trading post at Pondicherry on the southeastern coast of the Bay of Bengal. It changed hands over the centuries before rejoining India in 1956, but it has retained a soupçon of Frenchness (as well it should). (Been a while since I followed the adventures of Mireille, so I had to look ‘soupçon’ up. It translates not only into “hint” but also “suspicion,” and the second works better here, imo.)

The region also sent a small number of Indian Tamils to Paris, who were joined by other Tamil refugees after Indian and Sri Lankan independence in the late 1940s (with smaller numbers of Punjabis, Bengalis, Sikhs and Gujaratis to follow). More came to France in the 1980s after Britain made it harder for immigrants from the subcontinent to settle there. It doesn’t really matter WHY any of them came or in what context – from some countries as refugees, from some as economic migrants, and from some as one then the other. The point is: A pocket of the 10th Arrondissement northeast of the Gare du Nord became “Little India.” And that’s GREAT for us shoppers! Um, also, it has loads of non-Indians! The Sri Lankans mostly came way AFTER the 1940s! And not all the Tamils were refugees! But don’t trouble yourself! All Tamil people are the same! Everywhere! They have a hive mind like the Borg! Don’t worry about the silly context! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lankan_Tamil_diaspora#France

The neighborhood is rough-edged, working class and very authentic (read: poor). So authentic that I clutched my Chanel bag closely to my side to ward off the peasants. Is that sentence for real? I am actually out of snark, that sentence is so stunning. VERY AUTHENTIC. If you come, check your map and plot a walking route in advance (or you’ll get mugged). When you emerge from the Chapelle Metro, you don’t want to look like you’re lost (or you’ll get mugged). Or like a tourist. (Or even vaguely North African.) The area is more adventurous than dangerous (heh, who am I kidding, I was terrified and made my driver come with me), but still it’s not Saint-Germain-des-Pres. You will, however, always find someone who speaks more English than French.

If a gritty urban settings [sic] leaves you skittish (as it does me), call Poonam Chawla and she, with the help of her son Nikhil Bhowmick, will guide you on a tour of the neighborhood. She also runs a small cooking school specializing in northern Indian cuisine (with simple recipes learned from her mother (or quite possibly, Top Chef’s Padma Lakshmi)) from her apartment in the upscale 16th Arrondissement. (Confused about the Punjabi-Bengali action going on here between mother and son, and how it may affect the authenticity of N. Indian cuisine. I mean, there could be some Pakistani and Bengali food thrown in there, and that is so not authentically Indian.)

The first time I visited the neighborhood, I came in search of small colorful metal bangles worn by young girls (or just women of all ages). (They come in cylinders with about 24 bangles each, and about a dozen bangles mixed together make perfect napkin rings (So for a dinner party of 12, purchase six boxes of bangles. Or just skip the bangles altogether and substitute out-of-season diamond tennis bracelets for a whimsical, fun effect.) I passed shops selling Bollywood DVDs at bargain prices and Indian tailors, food shops, restaurants and travel agencies offering cheap flights to India. (Where’s a good halal butcher when you need one? Oh wait. That’s not Indian. That’s Queens.)

I found the bangles in the sari and costume jewelry shops that dot the Faubourg Saint-Denis, the main street of the neighborhood. These are busy shops that cater to brides-to-be, and many are not accustomed to curious Westerners who aren’t necessarily there to buy (just to gawk at the inscrutable mystery! Y’all know Western isn’t code for white, right?). But Chennai Silks is particularly welcoming. Saris there start at 25 euros and go up to the hundreds for a fine one of beaded and embroidered. Indian Designs dazzles with its wall of costume and real necklaces and earrings, and offers more than 150 patterns of bangles, hundreds of saris and fine cotton embroidered pajamas (they’re called salwars, not pajamas) for men and women. When it’s not too busy, Abdul Aziz Ansari, the owner, will show you around. (I heart Aziz Ansari! I’m so there!!!!) I was waiting for someone to be unable to resist that one.

I ventured onward to VS CO Cash & Carry, a large grocery with mysterious (because I can’t be bothered to find out what they are) spiked (With what? Has potential… ) vegetables and half a dozen kinds of eggplant. Anglo-Saxon-style baking powder is hard to find in Paris, but here it is sold in kilo-size tins. I left with cardamom tea and bottles of curry paste and chutney.

It was getting dark, so I dared not continue on. But I came back, again and again, always in daylight (because I didn’t want to be mugged!). After several visits, the neighborhood became mine. The natives started to call me Columbus madam. It just took several visits! Being entitled is AWESOME! After decades in the neighborhood, many of those residents still can’t say the country is theirs.

Want your eyebrows threaded for only 7 euros? Your hand hennaed? Try the Centre de Beauté Indien. Dass Ponnoussamy, who owns the shop with his wife, Stella, is full of wisdom (full of enlightenment passed down to him by the sages of eyebrow threading), about the area. His father, Antoine, opened the first grocery store nearby more than 40 years ago. The florist Hibiscus Fleurs flies in ropes of fresh jasmine packed in ice from the vast Chennai region. You pin it in your hair and suddenly you exude the sweet smell of fresh jasmine, a purer scent than Chanel No. 5 (but far less expensive, so use it sparingly — or the neighbors will talk).

Noon is the time to witness the midday ceremony at Temple Ganesh, the Hindu Temple on a side street a few blocks north of the main commercial area. Non-Hindus are welcome and no one reading this article could possibly BE Hindu, and picture-taking is allowed. Leave your shoes at the door and buy a basket of coconut, banana and betel leaf for about 8 euros to make a traditional offering. The ceremony, led by a priest naked to the waist (you KNOW what I’m SAYIN’!), fills the room with camphor and incense; chants and prayers; offerings of milk, honey, fruits and flowers. On the day of my visit, I was handed a plate of prasad, warm sweet rice, as a token of appreciation (or a desperate attempt to get me to leave).

Then comes lunch, starting with a lassi made with mango or rose. Southern Indian cooking features dosas (savory rice-and-black-lentil pancakes) and idlis (steamed rice cakes) instead of the naan bread (department of redundancy department, as my high school chem teacher used to say!) of the north. (Where’s the Chettinad chicken? Oh, it’s that sort of South Indian. Sigh. So hungry. The Bong in me is also craving a good Keralan fish curry… along with the momos.) Good vegetarian restaurants can be hard to find in Paris, but the neighborhood has two excellent ones (because DUH, everyone knows Indians are vegetarians!). The most recent one is Saravana Bhavan. Part of an international chain, it leaves even (even!) India-savvy diners with the impression of having just been to Madras (until the bill arrives). At nearby Krishna Bhavan, five of us ate well for 46 euros. (No Woodlands?)

Instead of ordering dessert, stop in at Canabady Snacks. The shop offers both savories (like the spicy chickpea-flour snacks that looks like orange worms) OMG, that phrase is part of the article? not part of someone else’s snark? and brightly colored cakelike desserts. (Holding out for monkey brain fritters on this end, ahem.) They are cloyingly sweet, but that’s part of the experience (oh the compromises one makes for exotic cultures, my carb count just went through the roof!). (If you just want jalebis, you can find them in the Arab or Persian stores. No need to venture out here. Ask for “zalabia” or “zoolbia,” and save on the Métro!) Ask enough questions of the charmingly timid men (so much less scary than those Senegalese and Algerians, I can’t even tell you) (you should see their women!) in the shop and they might pull out folding chairs (in defeat), offer you samples and make you boiling black tea with milk and sugar. (If it’s boiling, you can drink it.) For more on tea in Paris, here’s another Orientalist piece I wrote in these pages!

If you’re in the mood for more, head to the Passage Brady several blocks away. A forlorn, dimly lit covered arcade, its floor tiles are broken and many of its shops and restaurants are empty. (I would think this is more authentic. Dim lighting, forlorn air, broken tiles and all. Flâneur heaven. Just sayin’.) But it offers a piece of history: it was here that the first Indian businesses opened decades ago. Still going strong is Velan, an inviting one-stop shop for foodstuffs, decorative objects, incense, candles, costume jewelry and ayurvedic beauty products.

And in the Joan Miró garden near the Porte d’Italie in the 13th Arrondissement in the south of Paris, off a street called Tagore, there is another surprise: lost in a corner is a bronze bust of the poet and painter himself, pensive as he writes in a notebook. Like me, I am so thoughtful. So thoughtful, I “discovered” all of this.

As longtime readers know, this isn’t the first time Biden’s gotten into hot water with the desi community. Back in 2006, the then-Senator noted that “You cannot go into a Dunkin Donuts or a 7-Eleven unless you have a slight Indian accent.”

Watch the video of yesterday’s speech below. The imitation begins at 00:09 and ends rather abruptly. As one Buzzfeed commenter noted, “It’s like halfway through the impression he thought, “Oh sh–, better not follow through with this one.”