WWII Flying ace passes away

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SM tipster Amol notifies us of some sad news today out of the UK:

An Indian pilot who flew Hawker Hurricanes during World War II has died, it has been announced.

Squadron Leader Mahinder Singh Pujji, 92, died at Darent Valley Hospital in Kent on Saturday following a stroke.

Sqn Ldr Pujji was believed to be the last surviving fighter pilot from a group of 24 Indians who arrived in Britain in 1940.

He survived several crashes and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for services in Burma. [Google]

The photograph in the article conveys the swagger of a pilot who knows he’s a bad-ass.

He seems to have given an interview earlier this year:

Mohinder Singh remembers the start of the war vividly. Just a year after it had begun, at the height of the Battle of Britain, he decided to join the Royal Air Force (RAF). He was 22 years old and in search of adventure.

‘I saw London being bombed, I saw what people were suffering and I knew what they were going through and how cruel the enemy was because they were throwing bombs on civilians. They were not fighting soldier to soldier and hundreds of people were being made homeless so that changed my perspective, then I was very keen to fight for the country, for this country where I had come to seek adventure really.’

Two or three pilots would be lost everyday and Mohinder almost became a casualty himself several times.‘From day one in every letter to my parents I said don’t expect me back.’ [Link]

Here is a newer picture from an article in The Guardian last year that detailed a permanent exhibit at the RAF museum (that I once visited as a kid) called “Diversity in the Royal Air Force”:

I will likely re-visit this whole topic in greater detail at some point in the future.

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Converse throws out its new shoes

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Only someone in a Purple Haze could have come up with a design like this [thanks for the tip Ankur]:

Converse is longer selling a pair of Chuck Taylors that depicted guitar legend Jimi Hendrix as a colorful, multi-armed Hindu deity.

The company says the shoe–a part of a fall collection in memory of Hendrix–will no longer be sold because it offends Hindu culture. [Houston Chronicle]

The shoe company said that the inspiration for the design came from the 1967 album “Axis: Bold as Love.”

My take on this is the same as always. This stuff (taking artistic license with religious iconography) doesn’t insult me in the least as long as the intent behind it isn’t explicitly malicious or to stir up trouble. I’ll admit, I may have even bought a pair. I know many of you will disagree (and some will secretly want a pair too).

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Boys don’t cry

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The NYTimes reports on a continuing practice in Afghanistan that breaks one’s heart (complete with a slideshow):

KABUL, Afghanistan — Six-year-old Mehran Rafaat is like many girls her age. She likes to be the center of attention. She is often frustrated when things do not go her way. Like her three older sisters, she is eager to discover the world outside the family’s apartment in their middle-class neighborhood of Kabul.

But when their mother, Azita Rafaat, a member of Parliament, dresses the children for school in the morning, there is one important difference. Mehran’s sisters put on black dresses and head scarves, tied tightly over their ponytails. For Mehran, it’s green pants, a white shirt and a necktie, then a pat from her mother over her spiky, short black hair. After that, her daughter is out the door — as an Afghan boy.

There are no statistics about how many Afghan girls masquerade as boys. But when asked, Afghans of several generations can often tell a story of a female relative, friend, neighbor or co-worker who grew up disguised as a boy. To those who know, these children are often referred to as neither “daughter” nor “son” in conversation, but as “bacha posh,” which literally means “dressed up as a boy” in Dari. [NYTimes]

Anyone that caught the depressing 2003 film “Osama” (saddest ending ever) will be familiar with the practice of “bacha posh.”

Dan Rather also provides a short video segment on the story:

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/09/20/world/asia/1248069063442/excerpt-from-dan-rather-reports.html

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Barrymore goes to Bollywood

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The floodgates are opening and more Hollywooders are going slumdogging:

The Lifestyle is a Bollywood movie that will be managed by an Indian production house and produced by first-time writer and director Santosh Kumar Jain. “I really liked her performance in Charlie’s Angels and decided to cast her in my film. Fortunately, she liked the script and agreed instantly,” director Santosh Kumar Jain told the Times of India.

The Lifestyle will talk about three women who are all trying to find their identity. “The film is about three women from different walks of life, trying to assert their identities. Drew plays the role of a foreigner in the film. The other two will be top Indian actresses. The river Ganga is in the backdrop throughout the flick,” Santosh Kumar Jain added.

The flick is set to start shooting in November and will probably only hit theaters in 2012. The Lifestyle’s cast and crew will travel to Haridwar and Benaras, but will mainly work in the U.S. So who will be the lucky B-town artists who will get to work with the popular Hollywood star? [Link]

I still can’t decide. Is there really a profit motive/viable business model here or is this just a novelty such that some of these Hollywooders can have a chance to put on nice Indian clothes? Someone convince me it’s the former.

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Brown men. Tight shorts.

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Personally I think an epic Bollywood love story centered around kabbadi would have made for a better movie than one about Cricket.

In a recession, are brown men in modest shorts in?

The crowd seemed subdued — at least compared with fans of American sports — and there was little shouting or cheering. Typically, many devotees are Sikhs, and the crowd on Sunday included many men with beards and traditional turbans. Women sat in separate bleachers, many under umbrellas as shields against the sunny heat.

Yet in keeping with the sport’s international appeal, Sunday’s competitors also included a London team of white blond women and an Australian crew with two African-American men from California, one of whom described himself as a mercenary of sorts. [NYTimes]

Mercenaries? A team of blond women? Oh behave you New Yorkers.

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Mile High Meetup! – September 23

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The wonderful city of Denver, Colorado is exactly 5280 feet above sea level. (And you thought we were talking about something else? Chhi!) We’re holding our first meetup in the Mile High City this coming Thursday the 23rd. Sepia’s web wizard Kunjan will be in Denver this week, and though it’s a school night, I promised him I’d drive an hour north on I-25 to see him.

Date: THURSDAY, September 23rd, 2010

Time: 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm

Place: Indiä’s Restaurant

We’ll be meeting at Indiä’s Restaurant because it satisfies some minimum requirements: decent food, easy access from I-25, plenty of parking, and a respectfully stocked bar.

I was half hoping that one person would join us and then go next door for a 2.5-hour Hindi/Telegu/Tamil cinematic extravaganza— so we could crown that person the brownest person in the room, but it doesn’t look as if anything is playing that night. We’ll still take nominations though. I’m rooting for the person who figures out why our restaurant has an umlaut, which means that it should be pronounced “Indi-yehs.” (But maybe it’s more like Häagen Dasz).

When I first moved to Colorado, I thought it was the whitest place I had ever been. Then I got stuck in the airport at Salt Lake City. Now that I have lived here a while, I know there are many of you around. I’ve met a fair number of South Asian American 2nd-gens like me in Colorado, but I’ve also met people from every single South Asian country (including the Maldives) except Bhutan– though I know you’re around too.

Come on out, and say hi! If you can join us, let us know by leaving a comment, and I can book a table for all of us before we arrive. Continue reading →

Bhai, Bhai, Bhai

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I finally got to see Hari Kondabolu perform a couple of weeks ago when Laughter Against the Machine brought him through Oakland. It was my first time watching him live, and I couldn’t help but notice how even though our table of brown folks was laughing hysterically, there were definitely a few jokes on our racist society where the white folks in the room were squirming uncomfortably. He took it there, and then some.

Since I can’t take you there, I’m going to take you here.

In this clip, Hari and his brother Ashok i.e. Dapwell (“Dap” of Das Racist) do a read outloud of the infamous Joel Stein article “My Own Private India” (can we call it “Stein-gate”?). We had quite an active week when that article came out (Anna’s response here) and though Kalpen Modi’s article in the Huffington Post my favorite response, The Kondabolu’s response comes in a close second. The Untitled Kondabolu Brothers Project, which is basically what you get when these two hit the stage together, perform in NYC about once a month.

We’ve been doing our show for a little over a year now. It’s a loosely structured talk show. I need structure, but Ashok doesn’t like that so much, so we have set pieces with jokes I’ve written but enough room for him to go off on tangents. Watching Ashok roam is the spectacle. Whether it’s funny or not, it’s always interesting….People seem to love the dynamic between two brothers arguing and discussing pretty much anything in the World. The show is very natural to us and it really ends up being a conversation we could have anywhere. [mtviggy]

If your in NYC, check their next set of antics on September 15th at 7:30 pm at The Tank (354 West 45th Street). I’m sure you’ll laugh. 99%. Continue reading →

U.S. Open Men’s Doubles Finals (open thread)

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Today Indian Rohan Bopanna and his Pakistani doubles partner Aisam-Ul-Haq Quresh try and make history! The Men’s Double Finals will be carried on CBS this afternoon. They will face the American Bryan brothers (twins), who they beat last month. Any of you fortunate enough to be able to watch it can leave your observations in the comments thread here (note: all jingoistic and non-secular comments will be deleted).

NPR featured the dynamic duo this morning.
And the two ambassadors are bhai-bhai.
“There’s always the potential,” the Pakistani ambassador, Abdullah H. Haroon, said. “Hardeep [Indian Ambassador] and I are in the New York area and we’re always looking for avenues to open and this is a magnificent one. The message going back to Pakistan is, here’s a team seeded 16th, and they’re in the finals for the first time at the U.S. Open. That’s great news.” [link]
Let’s hope for a good match.

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Sri Lanka’s New Social Contract

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“I authorise and give up my right of governing myself to this man, or to this assembly of men, on this condition; that thou give up, thy right to him, and authorise all his actions in like manner…” And he that carryeth this person is called sovereign, and said to have sovereign power; and every one besides, his subject. – Thomas Hobbes, The Leviathan

If you happened to be in the vicinity of Ault Hucknall, England earlier today and felt the Earth move slightly, there is no cause for alarm; it was just Hobbes shifting in his grave. I’ll leave it to the theorists to figure out in which direction.

The Sri Lankan Parliament passed the 18th Amendment to the country’s Constitution, essentially codifying absolute power in the Executive. What else do you call it when term limits are removed and the election commission’s appointment is moved to the executive branch? Right. It swings the balance just a nooooooodge in favor of the incumbent (not that the election commission seems to have much by way of teeth anyway).

In addition to facing no term limits, the President now gets to appoint (after considering the “observations” of the Prime Minister, the Speaker, and opposition leaders):

The Election Commission
The Public Service Commission
The National Police Commission
The Human Rights Commission
The Permanent Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery and Corruption The Finance Commission
The Delimitation Commission (draws electoral district boundaries)

The Chief Justice and the Judges of the Supreme Court
The President and Judges of the Court of Appeal
The Members of the Judicial Serviec Commission, other than the Chairman

The Attorney-General
The Auditor-General
The Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration (Ombudsman)
The Secretary-General of Parliament

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