Free Summer Music Monday

Posted on June 26, 2010 by Taz

With news that King Khan’s band has broken up, I understand if your Alterno-Desi musical heart is a little crushed. Never to fear, Sunny Ali and the Kid have just dropped their first EP with enough songs to heal the pain away. You can download the full album for “pay what you can”. Or free. Your choice.

This Philidelphia based low-fi-cowboy punk duo of Hassan Ali Malik (that would be Sunny) and Abdullah Saeed (aka “The Kid” aka The Pork Adventurer) have just released their first EP, Try Harder. The band is relatively new having just started late last year but they already have a strong following. The EP has a fresh sound, reminding me of Texan deserts and dusty mirages. Recorded in a tiny 10×10 room on a “crappy program,” the album has a certain raw quality – but they guys are excited to share their music. You can check out my Q & A with the band a few months back on the Taqwacore Webzine.

What is odd to me is how this band is using a “pay what you can” model of distributing this album. Radiohead did this in 2007 when they ended their contract with EMI label. The idea is that even though most people will download the album for free there will be hardcore fans out there that will make a contribution to the band because they are invested. Takes costs benefits analysis to a whole new level. In Sunny Ali & The Kid’s case, people have been making donations for the album and the band has been fully appreciative.

Sunny Ali and the Kid aren’t the only ones dropping entire albums online for free. The Das Racist mixtape Shut Up, Dude can be downloaded off of their MySpace page entirely for free. Ridiculously surprising that after all their internet fame, their music is still not available on iTunes. You can download the album at this link if you haven’t yet.

A couple of weeks ago, another band also just dropped their new EP online for free, The Kominas. You can download mp3s off their album Escape to Blackout Beach for free OR for $7. I’m still confused as to what the $7 fee gets you, but I guess the hardcore musicians understand the differences in formats that the $7 gets you. Continue reading →

Desi Pride

Posted on June 26, 2010 by Taz

This Sunday marks the 41st Anniversary of the Gay Pride March in NYC. With rainbow flags waving, the streets of NYC will be covered with people taking it to the streets. And unlike the 2009 Indian Independence Day parade in NYC where queer desi activist groups like SALGA where denied from partaking, Desis this weekend will be marching.The SALGA float will have Bollywood music, of course.

NYC based pop cultural aficionado Rohin Guha had this to say about the duality of being queer and desi.

I’ve always been fascinated by the strange overlap between Indian and gay cultures. They’re like spurned aunts at a cousin’s wedding, each giving the other the iciest cold-shoulder. But once in a while, they might thaw enough to cast a wary side-eye to one another. And then they’ll return to ignoring each other.[thisisfyf]

Rohin goes on to write about this unlikely “fusion” via this Spice Girls video that he ended up watching with his parents as a kid.

But, when the Spice Girls–dressed in saris and salwars–stormed the stage on auto-rickshaws: Epiphany! It wasn’t an explicit epiphany, though. This performance of the Spice Girls lip-synching “Wannabe” simply made clear that my coming of age wasn’t going to be as neat as a joint effort co-written by Jhumpa Lahiri and David Sedaris might be.

[T]his is one of the earliest instances I can recall of my two identities being able to put aside their differences and play nicely. [thisisfyf] Continue reading →

Ole, Ole Ole Ole. Gulati done good.

Posted on June 26, 2010 by Abhi

Four years ago I noted on SM that Sunil Gulati was appointed the head of U.S. Soccer. Right now the U.S. Soccer team is performing near its best in the modern era. 80% of the credit has to be given to the improvement in play by the U.S. team and to coach Bob Bradley. But lets also give some credit to Gulati. France and Italy have demonstrated that having some of the most skilled players in the world means jack if your organization is dysfunctional and poorly managed.

Gulati (left) is working with Clinton to try and bring the World Cup back to the U.S. in 2018 or 2022

He grew up playing football in Nebraska. Gulati, who served as USSF vice president for six years, was elected as its president in March 2006.

“Across the past decade, a platform for this sport has been built that did not previously exist, and we now have an opportunity in the coming years to achieve more for soccer in the United States than anyone could have ever envisioned 15 or 10 or even five years ago,” Gulati had said after being elected at the USSF President.

Former USSF president and Major League Soccer founder Alan Rothenberg has called Gulati the “single most important person in the development of soccer” in the country. It is he who appointed the current US soccer coach Bob Bradley.

In February this year, he was unanimously re-elected the USSF president. [ToI]

As Gulati said after the Algeria victory, “A new benchmark has been set.”

I guess not everyone appreciates him though. A blogger at Deadspin had this recent eyewitness account from South Africa:

PRETORIA, South Africa — A few hours before the gut-roiling USA victory here, I witnessed a tense moment of another sort when two well-lubricated American yahoos tore into Sunil Gulati, the head of the U.S. Soccer Federation. Here’s how it unfolded …

Sometime after noon, I made my way to Hombaze, the pre-game boozing site for hardcore Stars and Stripes fans. And boozing they were. Waiters were bringing around six packs of Castle beer. The lads were downing lager as fast as they could lay hands on a bottle. Everyone was sauced and ebullient. Then Sunil Gulati turned up…

It was then, from the balcony of the bar, that an evil howling commenced. Even over the patriotic commotion you could hear it, an expression of pure animal rage that ran through the crowd like a dirty shank.

FUCK YOU, GULATI!… (Their complaints about Gulati, I would later learn, were manifold, and their origins were difficult to discern. They had something to do with the USSF and banners being prohibited in stadiums and ticket sales and Mexicans sitting in their section and not having “a seat at the table.”)… [Link]

Win or lose today, we here at SM appreciate all Gulati has done for the sport of futbol/soccer in the U.S. I like the fact that it is the hard work of an Indian American who grew up playing soccer in Nebraska that has in part led us to this game against Ghana’s Black Stars. Open Thread below for the game. Let’s go U-S-A!

Continue reading →

Today is Michael Jackson’s Barsy*

Posted on June 25, 2010 by A N N A

As a child, when my father “celebrated” my grandparents’ death anniversaries, I felt even weirder and more out of place than I usually did. None of my friends at school did it; it seemed odd to observe such a sad occasion. As I matured in to a somber teenager, I grew to embrace what I once thought morbid, especially when I realized that it brought comfort to survivors. (That’s the biggest reason why I am prone to insulting half of my family** by joking about how Marthomites have no respect for the dead; I’m only half-kidding.)

As an adult, I didn’t just celebrate a single death anniversary; I couldn’t help but relive a death “week“. It’s strange how measuring time by the absence of someone in your life can warp your perceptions. In the beginning, I couldn’t believe it had been one, two, three years since I lost my father. Now it feels like it was a lifetime ago.

I didn’t realize what was significant about today until I fired up my browser and my Facebook feed declared that 31 of my friends had changed their profile picture. Kindly forgive me; I hadn’t had my kaapi yet so I wasn’t really paying attention. “I wonder if there’s a new fb game,” I mused. Then I noticed that two-thirds of those profile pics were of the same brown person, sporting an afro, and it wasn’t Sai Baba. Why were so many of my friends honoring “old” Michael Jackson? The next tab which loaded contained news and immediately provided me with an explanation for updated Facebook pages.

It was the first anniversary of Michael Jackson‘s death. Continue reading →

I love the littlest Shivashankar…

Posted on June 24, 2010 by A N N A

Kavya meets the President!

…contender-to-watch Vanya, so sassy in her blue and black frock. I can’t help it. She’s the reason why I’m writing this post. Well, that and because luminous Mutineer Nilanjana tweeted the link to this picture— and had she not made like a virtual, social-media bird, I would have never seen such a delightful image of last year’s Scripps National Spelling Bee champion, Kavya Shivashankar (on the left), meeting the President, with her family proudly beside her. Continue reading →

Janina Opens The Gates

Posted on June 24, 2010 by Taz

Remember how years ago we were all crushing on Janina Gavankar‘s alter web search engine persona, Ms. Dewey? Well she’s back, and this time she’s bringing it with full force, singing AND acting.

No word on if Janina’s working on an album, but it sounds like this Kanye cover was just a one off project. But I did learn that she was part of girl group Endera, which was signed on to the Cash Money Universal label. Which means, technically, she was the first Desi signed to the label, not Jay Sean. A singer and an actress, you may also recognize Janina from the L-Word where she played “Papi.” Her face will be all over your prime time television soon too – Janina is now playing police officer Leigh Turner on the new series vampire/werewolf/bump-in-night suburban drama The Gates which started last week.

I play Leigh Turner [on The Gates]. She’s a cop who is very good at her job but she has a pretty dark secret that she keeps to herself. The secret is rad, I couldn’t have guessed it in a million years…

> I think there is a small crop of us who are working just because we are good, not because we are good Indians. I am building a career on being as good as I possibly can be. I don’t want people to say, “She is a great Indian actress.” Like, you don’t say, “She is a great white actress,” or “She is a great black actress.” No one is saying that shit. There are a bunch of us who believe in this. Just be dope. I am just excited for the next generation where color doesn’t matter and they will be allowed to just be artists. The arts in general are just a huge part of the culture. [[complex](http://www.complex.com/blogs/2010/06/21/open-up-the-gates-actress-janina-gavankar-speaks/)] What do you think? Has Janina locked you down? Continue reading →

Tipping Point? Haley’s journey nearly complete.

Posted on June 23, 2010 by Abhi

Nikki Haley’s victory Tuesday in the Republican primary battle for the South Carolina Governor’s mansion is symbolic of the huge strides that South Asian Americans have made in the past six years. I say this completely agnostic as to what kind of person or leader she will be or which policies she supports. You don’t have to support her politics one bit to pause and appreciate the demographic and historical significance of Tuesday’s victory. 2010 is a year in which a “raghead” is a few months away from being elected the chief executive of South Carolina. Something has fundamentally shifted. In 2004 when I wrote about Nikki on SM I did so in a post which cited Dalip Singh Saund in the title. He was the lone anomaly in Indian-American history.

So like, what’s up with South Carolina? Not widely recognized (at least by this blogger) as being a bastion of minority politics, all of a sudden South Carolina is the place to be if you are South Asian and have your eyes on the prize. Earlier this year, you may recall that Nikki Randhawa-Haley, 32, won the Republican Primary in South Carolina?s House District 87 and was to run unopposed in the November election. [SM]

Today Saund is no longer an anomaly but a harbinger:

The Republican Party stepped away from its long and uncomfortable history of racial and ethnic politics in South Carolina on Tuesday, nominating an Indian American woman for governor and an African American man for the House…

Nikki Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants, overwhelmingly captured the GOP gubernatorial nomination over Rep. J. Gresham Barrett — despite a whisper campaign insinuating that she is not really a Christian, as she says she is. And in the 1st Congressional District, Tim Scott, a black state lawmaker from Charleston, convincingly defeated Charleston County Council member Paul Thurmond, a son of the late senator Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.). Barrett and Thurmond are white. [WaPo]

A commentator in the Baltimore Sun was exultant this afternoon. He even invoked spelling bees, ivy league schools, and Kal Penn:

… the next decade is set to be the Indian-American decade. Second generation Indian-Americans are building on their parents’ success and achieving in diverse fields. From Ms. Haley’s political success (she is the likely Republican nominee for governor of South Carolina) to prime-time TV, its hard to miss the rise of Indian-Americans.

As late as the 1990s, there was only one notable Indian-American character on TV, a cartoon character, Apu on “The Simpsons.” From the lovable, Slurpee-peddling Apu, we now have an Indian-American on a major TV show each night of the week. From Mindy Kaling on “The Office” to Naveen Andrews on “Lost” to Aziz Ansari on “Parks and Recreation” to Kunal Nayyar on “Big Bang Theory,” Indian-Americans are suddenly everywhere.Indian-Americans don’t just win elections; they win national spelling bees, including 9 of the last 25. Indian-Americans have also taken home three Nobel Prizes. At any Ivy League school, more than 5 of the population is Indian-American, quadruple the share of the national population. [BaltSun]

Continue reading →

Henna Banned in New Jersey!

Posted on June 21, 2010 by Taz

What’s a Jersey Desi girl to do without her “henna tattoo”? The New Jersey Legislature today passed a bill, A940, which would prohibits application of certain temporary tattoos. (h/t inothernews). I was surprised that all hell didn’t break loose from the Jersey Desi Bridezilla population who had to rework the activity on their Mehndi night. Then I read the legislation.

Assembly Bill No. 940 prohibits body art establishments from applying temporary tattoos containing paraphenylenediamine (PPD), including “black or blue henna…

[U]nlike traditional henna which is made from an organic, plant substance, certain temporary tattoos contain additives, in some cases, PPD which can unknowingly cause permanent health concerns and scarring. Long term effects include severe dermatitis, eye irritation and tearing, asthma, gastritis, renal failure, vertigo, tremors, convulsions and coma in humans…PPD is not approved for direct application to the skin. [njleg]

Phew! Y’all can relax.The ban is only on the black henna w/ PPD, not the traditional organic mehndi made from smashing up henna leaves. Though the South Asian subcontinent henna leaves all leave a deep red dying of the skin, the traditional black henna comes from Africa and the Middle East. It turns out black henna isn’t even derived from the same plant as regular henna is.

“Black Henna” is a misnomer arising from imports of plant-based hair dyes into the West in the late 19th century. Partly fermented, dried indigo was called “black henna” because it could be used in combination with henna to dye hair black. This gave rise to the belief that there was such a thing as “black henna” which could dye skin black. Indigo will not dye skin black.[wiki]

The lesson here, Mutiny? Don’t use henna/mehndi unless it is pure and natural, the kind from the motherland. And never get yourself tattooed at one of those beach side tattoo places. Desi, please. Everything-is-Indian Uncle now has another story to add to his list. Continue reading →

Desis Run to The Hill

Posted on June 21, 2010 by Taz

Over the weekend, the AP did a piece on the record number of Indian-Americans running for office in November, a topic I covered well before the primary season here.

Meet Reshma, Surya, Manan, Raj, Ami, Ravi, Nimrata and Kamala — a new wave of Indian-American politicians. At least eight children of Indian immigrants are running for Congress or statewide office, the most ever. [yahoo]

That’s…

Reshma Saujani – New York, 14th Congressional District: She’s still up for her primary.
Surya Yalamanchili – Ohio, 2nd Congressional District: He won his Democratic primary.
Manan Trivedi – Pennsylvania, 6th Congressional District: He won his Democratic primary.
Raj Goyle – Kansas, 4th Congressional District
Ami Bera – California, 3rd Congressional District
Ravi Sangisetty – Louisiana, 3rd Congressional District
Nimrata “Nikki” Haley – South Carolina Governor: She (almost) won her Republican primary. Runoff on June 22nd.
Kamala Harris – CA Attorney General: She won the Democratic primary.

The article debates that the perceived assimilation of candidates into white American culture in an effort to get elected.

Yet when Haley’s motives are questioned and some suggest Indians must become less “foreign” to get elected, many of these new candidates are quick to ask: Who are we to judge the mashup of American ambition with an ancient culture?

> Manan Trivedi, a doctor and Iraq war veteran who recently won a Democratic primary for Congress in eastern Pennsylvania, said he did not view his ethnicity as a handicap: “The American electorate is smarter than that.”[[yahoo](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100619/ap_on_re_us/us_indian_american_politicians)] He goes on to ask the question we at Sepia Mutiny ask time and time again…. > Christianity is a more critical issue for white Republicans than other groups — could a Hindu who worships multiple gods, or a turbaned Sikh who doesn’t cut his hair, survive a statewide Republican primary in the Bible Belt?[ [yahoo](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100619/ap_on_re_us/us_indian_american_politicians)] Continue reading →

Let’s Fly First Class

Posted on June 21, 2010 by Amitava

Objects are like people: they can tell you where they come from. I count objects that look desi. Look at the plane above. You have probably seen that art on trucks in places like Lahore or Ludhiana. It might be two in the afternoon. It is hot and dry around you, the man selling sugarcane juice is sleeping in the shade of a tree, and there’s no one else around. Your shadow is the smallest you’ve ever seen in your life. And then a truck comes to a stop beside you. The exhaust pours out as if from a chimney in a brick kiln. If you look past it, however, you see painted on the side of the truck, a landscape that includes snowy peaks, colorful huts, cool skies, fields brimming with flowers that will live longer even than plastic. Folk utopia!

Continue reading →