Bamboo Shoots to victory

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p>Earlier this week the band Bamboo Shoots, and unsigned college band out of New Jersey (finally, something good about Edison), won an MTVU sponsored contest beating out over a 1000 other bands (thanks for the tip Anmol):

Propelled by votes from college students nationwide, the foursome from New Jersey emerged as the top choice of the more than 1,300 unsigned college acts registered on mtvU’s BestMusiconCampus.com. Bamboo Shoots – fusing upbeat, danceable rock, electro and South Asian/Indian sounds – was announced as mtvU’s inaugural “Artist of the Year” via a network debut performance on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” a platform which has helped launch countless up- and-coming bands to superstardom. The band will now set out on an unprecedented journey that will see them record a full LP with Epic Records, premiere two music videos on mtvU/mtvU.com, perform on tour dates with top national artists and collect a $50,000 cash advance – all of which will be documented in an original mtvU series premiering in the fall. [Link]

Even though word was out that the group had won the MTVU contest, the official announcement came during their live performance on the Conan O’Brien Show:

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Hollywood invades

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Once upon a time Indian cinema could rest secure in the loyalty of its large domestic base. Even if Indian audiences didn’t always like local movies, they were unlikely to defect to American (or other foreign) movies. However, this is all changing, as Hollywood sets its sights on the domestic Indian movie market:

… only a few years ago, Hollywood films warranted only about 100 prints, and if there were dubbed versions, they were often released after the English-language version finished its run. The tactic made most Indian moviegoers feel like second-class citizens …

The turning point, experts say, was last year, when some 400 prints of the James Bond film “Casino Royale” were released in India – including three versions in Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu – simultaneously with the global debut. [Link]

In 2005, foreign films had only around 5% of the $1 billion dollars in theater tickets sold in India each year. However, Hollywood profits are now growing at 35% per year as they aggressively roll out dubbed movies as part of a global release. Despite Bollywood’s size (more people buy tickets to Bollywood films than Hollywood ones, world wide), it doesn’t have Hollywood’s deep pockets:

Movie tickets in many part of India cost $1, meaning Bollywood’s global revenues are about 2 percent of Hollywood’s, says Mr. Bose. “Hollywood can spend 8 percent of its normal marketing budget for a film and get the same amount of exposure as a top Hindi film,” says Sanjay Ram of BusinessofCinema.com in Mumbai.

The most lavish Bollywood films rarely cost more than $10 million. “Spider-Man 3” is thought to have cost $260 million. [Link]

The new release of Spiderman3 has local moguls scared:

The film opened to Rs 19.17 crore on it’s opening weekend in India, making it a likely contender for the highest earning film of 2007 — Indian or otherwise. [Link]

“Spider-Man 3” has already been blamed for taking the momentum from one of the few major Hindi releases this year, “Ta Ra Rum Pum” (“Don’t Worry, Be Happy”). [Link]

Sequels to “Shrek”, “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Harry Potter” are all also due out later this summer. Continue reading →

Meena from the morgue

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Questionable Content is a cult webcomic that is a cross between Friends and Seinfeld, except for Indie music snobs instead of mainstream audiences. It’s a “slice of life” story about 20-somethings in Northampton, Massachusetts. Recently, author and illustrator Jeph Jacques introduced Meena.

Meena works at the morgue, and flirts by making Ebola jokes. (This is realistic – I do know desi women in real life who flirt by making jokes about horrible diseases). She also has all the normal tribulations of a desi woman:

Yup. It’s slice of life, alright.

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Mosque Attacked in Hyderabad

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A “crude” bomb exploded at the 17th century-era Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad during Friday prayers, killing five and seriously injuring at least 25 others (Thanks, Red Snapper and Tamasha):

Minutes after the blast, Muslims angered by what they said was a lack of police protection began chanting slogans — a situation that quickly devolved into mobs throwing stones at police, who responded with baton charges and tear gas.

Some reports I’ve read state that the tear gas was used to clear the area, to help ambulances rush to and from the scene.

The bombing and ensuing clash between worshippers and police raised fears of wider Hindu-Muslim violence in the city, which has long been plagued by communal tensions and occasional spasms of religious bloodletting.
Many of those injured in the explosion at the 17th-century Mecca Masjid were severely wounded, and the city’s police chief, Balwinder Singh, warned the death toll could rise.
Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh state, where Hyderabad is located, appealed for calm between Hindus and Muslims.
Reddy called the bombing, which killed at least five people and wounded 25, an act of ”intentional sabotage on the peace and tranquility in the country.” [NYT]

Mecca Masjid, so named because some of its bricks were brought from that holy city, took 8000 masons almost eight decades to complete; it is the largest mosque in Hyderabad.

Developing… Continue reading →

A Third Serving of Caste

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…via SAJAforum. This ran in the WSJ today, as we were still discussing caste on this blog. What excellent timing for a barely-mediocre cartoon.

A very stupid toon.jpg

What do you think? Over at SAJA, commenter Sendhil had the following to say, which left me giggling:

If this is from the WSJ’s “Pepper… and Salt” spot, it’s not unusual that it’s not funny. Those cartoons are funny less often than “Fred Bassett”. I have concluded that they must serve some other, hidden, purpose, like sending coded messages about tomorrow’s Dow performance to the members of the Trilateral Commission.

Fred Bassett? Ouch. Continue reading →

Whole Grain Naan @ Whole Foods: Not So Much.

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After much kvetching about it, I will cave and put up a post so you aren’t tormented by South Indian perfection everytime you hit F5.

I find it wickedly hilarious that the only thing I had “ready-made” was also about…food. 🙂 Don’t worry– these Naan looked a lot better than they tasted, which was not very good. How do you cook something with ghee in a tandoor and STILL have it taste like a pita?

::

I keep it fobulous, y’all.

No, really. I’m going to. By my conservative estimate, we have people from twelve different countries working on my project; several of them bring food from home every day, which they nuke in the microwave, which means the fragrance/reeking odor permeates the entire office suite.

501754291_7d08d0e4e1.jpg When my Pakistani colleague heats something up, it smells vaguely familiar. Same for the Turkish food. But everything else…seriously, someone needs to pass a law which prohibits the reheating of SEAFOOD in microwaves. Vomitacious. That’s what that is. So, I am no longer going to be considerate to the point of paranoia about eating brown food at work, especially not when the Pakistani food comes here in big plastic dabas to facilitate multiple servings– people love desi food, so the man sweetly brings extra. That’s how I got some unexpected halwa a week or so ago. He was walking around the same way my Mom does at home, at the end of lunch, looking for someone to finish the last portion (whether they want to or not), so he could wash the dish. I was already full and in no mood for sooji halwa, but I got a big ass serving of it and you best believe I cleaned my plate in time to pass his inspection 20 mins later. 🙂

So. This is naan I found at Whole Paycheck on Sunday. I had absolutely no hope of it being good, especially since it has “BEST New Food Product in America” stickered upon it. I mean, it’s at Whole Foods. How authentic could it be? Still, stupidity springs eternal, innit?

Well, it is not the real deal or even remotely close, despite the fact that it is made (allegedly) in a tandoor, with ghee no less. But after the first two disappointing bites, I found myself going back for more. It tastes like really soft pita bread. Or a cross between pita and naan. As long as it doesn’t taste like Bisquick (I’m looking at you, lazy desi restaurants!!!), I’m open to destroying something pickled with it. I’m surprised to report that the “regular/white” type tasted much better than the whole-grain-loaded version pictured above left. Too bad, too. The wheatish ones looked somewhat like my mom’s puris…but they taste even more like pita bread than the “white” naan do.

Since I was already in an experimental mood, I tried a DIFFERENT brand of Kaduku Manga pickle: “Nirapara”. Verdict? Not bad at all. Tastes more home-made than my belowed Grandma’s brand, but that is because it has an edge I can’t quite determine the origin of– and imperfection feels homely. No matter. It’s my “work” kaduku manga. I’ve got half a case of the real deal safely squirreled away at home, where it belongs. Continue reading →

Reminder: The DC Meetup is THREE DAYS Away!

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Get in my BELLLY.jpg

Actually, it’s less than three days away, but who is being pedantic…not me, especially not when there is gluttonous dosa and vada consumption to anticipate in my near future.

D.C.’s sixth meetup will occur this Saturday at Amma’s Vegetarian, in Georgetown at 1 o’clock isharp. Since none of you read that, I’ll restate it, this time with formatting:

WHERE: Amma’s Vegetarian Kitchen, 3291 M St. NW, Washington, DC 20007, 202-625-6625

WHEN: Saturday, 1pm

WHY: Because you asked for it!

Lakshmi, MuraliMannered, Ashu, Arun, Coffeeface, Portmanteau, Sriram and at least three others have all tentatively RSVP’d– what about you? For all of you who are thinking, “There’s always next time”, don’t. There may not be. Besides, brunch this weekend sounds enticing, doesn’t it? Yum. Carpe dosa! Continue reading →

R.I.P Guiatree Hardat

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It’s hard to imagine something worse for a parent than having to cremate their own child. Today Sukhdeo Hardat of Queens has to do just that after his daughter’s policeman ex-fiancé shot her to death in the middle of the street with his service pistol.

He refused to let go

Harry Rupnarine joined the NYPD two years ago as a transit police officer. Soon thereafter, while in uniform, he met Guiatree Hardat and became her first serious boyfriend. She had just come to the USA from Guyana, and was studying at Queens College to become a math teacher. He was older, possessive and controlling:

The possessive cop wanted to keep so close an eye on his girlfriend that he often called her a dozen or more times a day. Rupnarine, 37, constantly nagged Guiatree Hardat, 22, to marry him. He was angry that she wanted to wait until she finished college. [Link]

They broke up, but got back together again. Unfortunately, things hadn’t changed much:

Just a week ago, he flipped out when she asked him to come in the kitchen and talk to her while she did some household chores.”Your attention can’t be in two places at once!” he told her, according to Hardat’s relatives. “You must listen to me!”. [Link]

They went out to dinner last Thursday, as Rupnarine tried to patch things back up, but it didn’t work. She called her father at 7:08 PM to ask for a ride, then called him back to say she would take the bus home. He worried:

But Hardat, 46, felt uneasy about his daughter and headed out to find her. Her cell phone kept going straight to voice mail, and when she finally picked up, he heard her final words. “Go away!” the father remembers her daughter yelling at Rupnarine. “I hate you! I hate you!”

The call ended at that point, and by the time Hardat arrived at the scene, just past 7:45 p.m., Rupnarine was in handcuffs and Hardat’s daughter was dead on the ground in a pool of blood. [Link]

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“Those who spy for America will face this same fate”

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A bomb exploded in the Peshawar restaurant where a “close relative” of Mullah Dadullah—the charismatic leader of the Taliban who was killed this past weekend—had been arrested, though there is no confirmation that said arrest provided the intelligence which helped us find Dadullah. The attack is especially ominous because it indicates that the war in Afghanistan is spreading to Pakistan [via PI].

The suicide bomber’s severed leg, found in the rubble of a restaurant where he killed 25 people, was wrapped with brown tape used to seal packages. On the tape, scrawled in the Pashto language, was an ominous warning.
“Those who spy for America will face this same fate,” it said.
The bomb went off yesterday in the four-story Marhaba Hotel in an old quarter of this frontier city, which served as the main staging point for mujahedeen in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s and is still synonymous with violent Islamic radicalism and political intrigue…
In addition to the warning for those who spy for the United States, provincial police chief Sharif Virk said, the parcel tape bore the Persian word Khurasan – often used in extremist videos to describe Afghanistan.

The timing of the attack is noteworthy:

The bomb went off shortly after the restaurant’s Afghan owner, Saddar Uddin, returned from a trip outside with some relatives, said waiter Hassan Khan. Uddin, his two sons, two other relatives, and seven employees were among the dead, he said.
A local intelligence official said Uddin, an ethnic Uzbek, had links to the party of anti-Taliban warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, part of the Northern Alliance that helped the United States topple the old regime.

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When life hands you lemons…

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Former SM blogger Apul tipped us off to the fact that Menton, France has a lemon festival every year (this year’s was back in February):

The Lemon Festival is a celebration of all things related to the small yellow fruit.

Menton is the lemon capital of the Cote d’Azur and is very popular with both locals and tourists.

Large constructions and floats that are made mostly of lemons parade down the streets.

Everyday throughout the festival these sculptures can seen around the town and sometimes include popular cartoon characters. [Link]

The theme this year was India:

What might have happened if Shah Jahan’s love for Mumtaz had soured with age…

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