Nam-a-Sake

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Two years ago when Aishwarya was promoting Bride and Prejudice in the US, we were subjected to this idiocy on Oprah. (My favorite part of the interview: Do Indian women practice the Kama Sutra?)

Now Fox Searchlight provides us with a tongue-in-cheek promotional interview with Kal Penn on The Namesake. Although this clip is staged, something tells me that Kal will be fielding similar questions from media personalities in the coming weeks. According to IMDB, the film opens this Friday, March 9. Brace yourselves, I’m sure we’ll have fodder to blog about. Continue reading →

Kenneth Eng Spills His Seed

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Speaking of unhinged people in media, we’d be remiss if we didn’t at least mention the train wreck that recently went down at San Francisco’s AsianWeek newspaper, where a complete idiot by the name of Kenneth Eng, 22 years of age, wet behind the ears, hot under the collar, too big for his britches and bats in his belfry, has been allowed to write a column called, interestingly, “God of the Universe,” in which he spewed moronic racist rants against white people, fellow Asian people, and Black and Latino people, apparently unchecked until his most recent gem blew the lid off the whole damn pot. Entitled, “Why I Hate Black People,” it explained, well, why Kenneth Eng hates black people. Though he also likes to call them Negroes. The column has been pulled and AsianWeek, which ran this guy’s infantile bloviations for a number of months, has now issued a pathetic, simpering apology, but the text has been preserved for posterity in various places on the interwebs. Here is a wee sample:

Contrary to media depictions, I would argue that blacks are weak-willed. They are the only race that has been enslaved for 300 years. It is unbelievable that it took them that long to fight back. On the other hand, we slaughtered the Russians in the Russo-Japanese War.

You’ll find a link to a PDF of the whole thing here. Anyway, at the risk of over-extending this fool’s fifteen seconds of fame, I also wanted to draw your attention to his soapbox at Amazon, where he’s also peddling some really atrocious fantasy writing (there’s a link to excerpts on this page). He writes on his Amazon blog:

Let’s look at the muslim religion. They believe that music, dance, naked women and other such things are “indecent”. They think that some creature called “allah” will bring them peace, yadda, yadda, yadda. They think that if they bow every day, they will somehow be transported to a place called “heaven”, where everyone looks conspicuously human. I don’t know about you, but I masturbate all the time. It’s not going to affect me in any way, aside from making me need to take baths more often. And listening to O Fortuna will not make my head explode. Nor will spitting at every church I see make my intestines burst out of my abdomen.

Furthermore, most religious people I’ve met tend to be incredibly stupid/poor. They are usually black/hispanic immigrants who do not have the brains or the balls to understand science and thus resort to reading retarded stories about saviors and saints. (Oh, by the way, for those of you who want to scream at how “racist” I am for mentioning negroes and hispanics in such a way, go to someone who gives a sh*t).

OK, that’s enough of that. So what’s this AsianWeek anyway? Here’s a take from Neelanjana Banerjee, who was once a reporter and editor there. AsianWeek’s pitch to advertisers says the paper is aimed at “1.5, 2nd and 3rd generation Asian Americans” — basically the East Asian equivalent of a lot of y’all macacas reading this site. You’d think someone there would have had the sense to sever young Mr. Eng’s ties to the paper a long time ago. I’m all for free speech, but I’ve rarely seen a more compelling case for blacklisting (pun intended! ha ha Kenneth, I said blacklisting!) — or maybe just an good ol’ fashioned beatdown. Happy Friday everybody! Continue reading →

Behind the News at the Washington Times

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Props to tipster Rajath, who overnight sent in a link to this extraordinary item (via Wonkette) on the blog of George Archibald, a journalist who worked for two decades at the Washington Times and clearly maintains close connections there, since he has the verbatim backstory on the paper’s recent series on female abortion in India. Now I know that gender selection in India (and in other countries, yes, yes) is a serious and real issue. And also, far be it from me to impugn the journalistic standards of the Washington Times, which as I’m sure you heroes know is the brave and patriotic alternative to that noted leftist, freedom-hating rag the Washington Post, but still, it seems that managing editor Fran Coombs has taken it to that other level:

The day before, there was a brief discussion on the foreign desk about a pending series by religion writer Julia Duin on the abortion of girls in India. The Times had expended a lot of money for Julia Duin and photographer Mary Calvert to travel to India to produce this series.

In the discussion with colleagues on The Washington Times foreign desk, editor Jones said: “The reason we are running this story is that Coombs thinks all the aborted girls means that Indian men will be immigrating to the United States to marry our girls.” That is an exact quote, what Jones told his colleagues on the foreign desk.

Coombs has told me and others repeatedly that he favors abortion because he sees it as a way to eliminate black and other minority babies.

Read Archibald’s post for more newsroom shenanigans involving this character. Meanwhile, if there are any red-blooded Caucasians reading this site, here’s another reason for you to hide your daughters from the impending hordes of brown. Continue reading →

A history of European vegetarianism

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I know that many SM readers like to partake in one particular cross-border skirmish we seem to have a lot here. You know the one of which I speak, right? It’s the herbivores vs. the carnivores (although technically we are all omnivores). Well, to throw a little fuel on to that fire I submit to you this book review over at Slate.com.. The book is titled “Bloodless Revolution” and is meant to be a sort of “history of European vegetarianism.” I haven’t read the book but the review was quite insightful. First the background on the book:

Here’s the story as he tells it in The Bloodless Revolution: In the 17th century, a fundamental question about the relationship between ourselves and the other creatures of the earth broke out into passionate debate, a debate that swooped over and around and through the culture, rattling long-held European assumptions about the very nature of life. There was no single word adequate to capture the ideas that were bursting forth, until the term vegetarian emerged in the middle of the 19th century. And with that, the battle was over–not because meat-eating came to an end but because European culture made a home for this challenge to dietary norms, giving it a local habitation and a name. Whether or not this constituted a victory for animal-lovers is hard to say. As Stuart points out early on, when the concept of vegetarianism became domesticated, it turned into “a distinct movement that could easily be pigeon-holed, and ignored.” But people did start thinking differently about animals, human responsibilities, and the rights of living creatures, albeit rarely to the extreme sought by such groups as PETA. Stuart sums it up well: Nowadays, he says, “negotiating compassion with the desire to eat is customary…” [Link]

The critic contends, however, that vegetarianism from a European perspective isn’t so much something they accept as a way of life but is rather a philosophy to be practiced off an on:

If vegetarianism has settled comfortably into Western culture by now, it’s because the term vegetarian has become so vast and shapeless that it describes just about everybody who isn’t on the Atkins diet. To be sure, there are vegetarians who avoid all animal food. But most are willing to eat eggs, and many eat fish. Chicken is fine with some because hey, it isn’t beef. Hamburgers? Absolutely not–or maybe just once in a while. And turkey because it’s Thanksgiving, ham because it’s Easter, pepperoni because it’s pizza–what on earth is a vegetarian, anyway? No wonder Stuart never tries to define the term. A huge, wonderfully entertaining cast of dietary rebels parades through his chapters, but all we really know about the eating habits of these pagans, scientists, doctors, scholars, theologians, writers, philosophers, and crackpots is that most of them ate meat. [Link]
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Banking on Chris Rock

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We’ve heard of Hollywood investing money in the Indian film industry. Now it looks like the cash money is already flowing in the opposite direction.

Last night when I was flipping channels, I paused to see the trailer for Chris Rock’s I Think I Love My Wife. Now, it wasn’t the trailer itself that made me stop flipping (it doesn’t look anything I’d pay ten dollars to watch). No, it was the fact that the UTV logo flashed on the screen, billed as the movie’s producer. Yes, that UTV. The same Indian production company that made Rang De Basanti, Don, and Chalte Chalte is apparently cranking out Hollywood movies now, too.

Although I couldn’t find any mention of ITILMW on UTV’s website, a few google searches confirmed my suspicion. According to Rediff:

UTV inked co-production deals with Fox Searchlight and Will Smith’s production company Overbrook Entertainment and Sony Pictures Entertainment [back in 2006] to create and distribute films worldwide – making it the largest co-production deal out of South Asia worth $37 million. The $14 million production, I Think I Love My Wife, starring Chris Rock, will be UTV Motion Pictures’ second venture with Fox after Mira Nair’s The Namesake.

According to Variety, UTV provided half of the budget for ITILMY, with the intention of distributing it in India and sharing in the rights. In return, Will Smith’s Overbrook Entertainment will co-produce a film for $10 million that will have its backdrop set in India. (I’m thinking a song-and-dance version of Hitch.) Continue reading →

Talwinder, Virgil and the Universal Plot Line

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talwinder.jpgHere’s a story that bubbled up in the New York tabloids and local TV news a few days ago but didn’t make it any further. That’s because as incidents of police brutality go, the two shots fired into the legs of construction worker Talwinder Singh by off-duty NYPD officer Quillian Virgil don’t really seem, on current evidence, to be that egregious an abuse. In fact it seems that brother Talwinder (pictured, via NY Daily News) may well have put himself in position to get hurt through a series of frankly bizarre actions.

“OFF-DUTY COP SHOOTS ENRAGED PURSUER IN QUEENS,” blared the New York Post, making clear who it thinks was the victim in the confrontation that led to the shots being fired, near the corner of 103rd Avenue and 116th Street in Ozone Park, which in that stretch is heavily desi — Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, and Indo-Caribbeans from Guyana and Trinidad. (According to the 2000 census, the three census tracts that abut that particular corner are nearly one-third “Asian” — which around here means desi, with another 18% classified as “two or more races;” the foreign-born population is nearly 65%. In other words typical outer-borough New York, with these trends likely to have only accelerated since the census was taken.)

Anyway, piecing together the info — the Daily News has the fullest article — it seems that Talwinder Singh had already once thrown a brick through Sgt. Virgil’s home window before returning last Friday evening for more mischief. Apparently Talwinder had a metal exercise bar — one of these joints, specifically — and was using it to smash the sergeant’s screen door. Alerted by his wife, Virgil got out of bed and stepped outside to find Singh wilding out. The papers say Singh then pursued Virgil down the block and at some point Virgil stopped, turned, and told Singh to drop the metal bar. The reports say Singh then lunged at Virgil, who then shot him in the legs to immobilize him.

Without endorsing any particular version of events, the whole story seems a bit… unhinged. I mean, who goes and vandalizes a police officer’s house — repeatedly? There has to be some other dimension and the tabloids are happy to provide it:

Talwinder Singh, 20, reportedly was sneaking up to see his landlord’s wife, and neighbor Sgt. Quillian Virgil informed the husband, the source said.

Aha! The love interest! It’s alleged that the landlord then consulted Virgil for advice about how to evict the young rascal. Talwinder got wind of this and decided to go for revenge. Now the landlords haven’t been named so we don’t know if they’re desi — a good chance they are, but it’s piquant either way. However lips are sealed:

The landlord’s wife wasn’t talking about the man who lives one floor beneath her in a basement apartment.

“I have nothing to say,” she told reporters at the 116th St. home yesterday. “Nothing.”

Meanwhile the peanut gallery is weighing in:

Some neighbors described Talwinder Singh, a construction worker, as a troublemaker.

“These fellas were always drinking and fighting,” Nazimudin Mohamed, 47, said of Talwinder Singh and his relatives. “I knew something was going to happen.”

Talwinder was taken to Jamaica Hospital and charged with a variety of offenses. Internal Affairs is investigating Virgil’s side of the story. Again, we’ll see how it all shakes out but what I dig about this story is how archetypal it is, with respect to characters, motive and dénouement. You could take out the desi names and put in Italian, Irish or Greek ones and you’d have an American urban story from a previous wave of immigration and settlement. Or you could keep the characters and change the setting to London, for instance, and it would work the same way. It’s confirmation that there are some constants in metropolitan life, and, perhaps, of that old writer’s saw that claims there are only four plots in human affairs, and all stories are merely variations. Continue reading →

You better start behaving before dad cuts your allowance

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The big news out of Washington this morning was that the White House has confronted Pakistan about their lame efforts in going after terrorists within their borders:

President Bush has decided to send an unusually tough message to one of his most important allies, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the president of Pakistan, warning him that the newly Democratic Congress could cut aid to his country unless his forces become far more aggressive in hunting down operatives with Al Qaeda, senior administration officials say…

American intelligence officials have concluded that the terrorist infrastructure is being rebuilt, and that while Pakistan has attacked some camps, its overall effort has flagged…

For the time being, officials say, the White House has ruled out unilateral strikes against the training camps that American spy satellites are monitoring in North Waziristan, in Pakistan’s tribal areas on the border. The fear is that such strikes would result in what one administration official referred to as a “shock to the stability” of General Musharraf’s government. [Link]

I find some humor in the fact that Bush is telling Musharraf to be worried that the Democrats will be more stern than him. It is a little like a mother saying, “you better shape up or you will be in big trouble with daddy.”

The Blotter reports additional details:

In a highly unusual move, the deputy director of the CIA, Stephen R. Kappes, was flown to Pakistan to personally present President Pervez Musharraf today with “compelling” CIA evidence of al Qaeda’s resurgence on Pakistani soil, U.S. officials say.

Kappes joined Vice President Dick Cheney for the surprise showdown meeting in Musharraf’s office in Pakistan.

The CIA evidence reportedly included satellite photos and electronic intercepts of al Qaeda leaders operating in Pakistan. [Link]

Of course, we all know that if El General goes down then things could get a lot worse in Pakistan. And so the dance continues (at least until daddy comes home).

Continue reading →

Wallflower once more

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Oscar season has come and gone, and Indian film came nowhere close to being honored with Rang de Basanti failing to even make the foreign films shortlist and Water getting passed over. Reacting to RDB’s poor showing in the BAFTAs (the British Oscars), actor Naseeruddin Shah had this to say:

“We just don’t make films of an international standard… I really don’t think we make films that can match those from other parts of the world. And I am not referring to Hollywood – we make copies of Hollywood,” [Link]

Criticisms of Bollywood’s lack of originality and quality are nothing new, but coming from Shah they carry more weight. When I make similar statements, my Bollydefending friends justly point out that as an ABD I just don’t get the genre-specific joys, but it’s harder to rebut somebody who has acted in both mainstream Bollywood film and alternative cinema in India, appearing in over 130 films with 3 Filmfare magazine awards to his name. Furthermore, his statements appear to be more than an indictment against Bollywood; as quoted they are a criticism of the entire Indian film industry.

This is not to hold Hollywood up as an exemplar of good taste and originality. M.Night won worst director at this year’s Razzies and this year’s Best Film, The Departed, is a less exciting copy of Hong Kong’s Infernal Affairs. [Granted it really won as a deferred reward for Scorcese, but still …]

What makes Shah’s criticism interesting is that he’s not saying India should be like Hollywood, instead he’s comparing India to other third world countries, saying that they produce better movies:

“We can’t match the types of films made in Iran for example, Poland, Japan, Mexico or Brazil, Vietnam or Korea… These countries are producing the most incredible movies and we are still plodding on with our boy-meets-girl safe, old formula. That is the reason I think our films aren’t taken seriously”. [Link]

Others point not to quality but to the lack of an adequate marketing budget (thanks Anil). The producer of The Departed had this advice:

… the financers who fund Bollywood movies must spend double or triple of the production costs they are currently spending just in marketing efforts and use it to promote the beauty of Indian cinema to a mainstream audience. As far as ‘The Departed’ is concerned, the promotion budget exceeded the costs of the production of the movie [Link]

Continue reading →

All That Glitters Ain’t (Banarasi) Gold

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waterredcarpet.jpgApparently the only surprise about Deepa Mehta’s Water losing out on the Best Foreign Film award last night was that the eventual winner wasn’t Pan’s Labyrinth, the consensus favorite, but rather The Lives of Others, by an impossibly tall German director with an impossibly aristocratic Prussian name. So there’s little gnashing of teeth or rending of garments in the Indian press today, simply matter-of-fact recognition that “India’s Oscar jinx” carries on. It’s also apparently a known fact (I never get to the movies, so I’m just repeating what I read) that the entire field for the foreign-film award was extremely strong. So no injustice here any way you cut it.

However, I am rather exercised at the Monday morning snub from the newspaper round-ups of red carpet fashion, which roundly ignore the gorgeous heirloom gold-threaded Banarasi sari in which Mehta graced the ceremony. Los Angeles Times, New York Times — no one paid the slightest notice, positive or negative, to the passage across the red carpet of the Water crew. Even my mellow Hank Stuever in the Washington Post — political, worldly, and queer as the proverbial three-dollar bill — ignored the desi contingent, his confessed ogling of Ryan Gosling affording John Abraham no residual love.

Oh well. Perhaps it’s all for the best that our peoples passed by under the radar, considering the standard-issue snark that’s become de rigueur in such coverage. Or perhaps coverage was the point — body coverage, that is: with so much exposed bosom and leg to take in — let alone Jack Nicholson’s creepily depilated dome — those who took cover in dignified, discreet outfits necessarily condemned themselves to oblivion in the morning news.

deepatoronto.jpg Deepa could have joined the flesh parade, had she wanted to match up against Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren in the “do they still got it?” division, a bit of a rigged fixture for a director against two actresses. The dresses were there for the wearing, but the sista had a much better plan:

They must have been throwing clothes at Mehta once the nominations were announced.

“Yes, they were,” she admits. “Chanel, Armani, Prada etc. … approached me. `No, thank you. I’m wearing my mother’s sari.’ For one thing, I’ll never wear a dress in my life: I’m more blue jeans and cargo pants. It was just a question of what sari.”

Her mother’s sari was part of her trousseau.

“My paternal grandmother gave it to my mom when she got married,” she recalls. “It’s gold but because it is so old (from the ’40s), it’s burnished. It’s very subtle. The gold thread is a weave not done anymore. It’s gorgeous and it’s personal. It’s Mom’s.

“And Bulgari wanted to do my jewellery. But I’ll wear my antique Indian jewellery because it goes with the sari.”

Read the full, friendly feature from the Toronto Star here. As for the Oscars, if you’re feeling the pain of desi exclusion, the Economic Times offers you here a kind of consolation. Continue reading →

Bharat Gheewala’s dream

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We’ve all seen a movie and been inspired to change our lives. Usually, with me, that impulse lasts around as long as it takes me to get home and then I forget or move on. However, in Bharat Gheewala’s case [I can’t make that name up – what could be a better name than that?], he plans to act on this impulse.

Gheewala’s inspiration came from an unlikely place — the movie “The Last King of Scotland” which should earn Forest Whitaker an Oscar tonight. Watching the movie reminded Gheewala of his own experiences in Uganda over 30 years ago:

“It was a case of leaving the kitchen and the bathroom and all our belongings and just getting out,” he said. “At first no one knew if Amin had meant what he said. But when it became clear that he had there was real panic… “In the end most of us left with nothing. People knew Amin … was a killer and would carry out his threats if we did not obey him…” [Link]

Interestingly enough, it also made Gheewala, now a successful businessman in the UK, feel he should do something to help Uganda:

“There is a saying that when you prosper you should give something back to the land of your birth, the land that created you as a person and that’s what I want to do.” [Link]

Gheewala says he now wants to build a hydroelectric plant to generate electricity in the south of Uganda, and create a lasting legacy for his family. I can’t tell if he’s serious or not, or if this is all clever PR, but I thought, on Oscar night, it would be nice to spotlight somebody who at least claims to have been inspired by the silver screen.

Continue reading →