Fortune cookies

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The NYT reports that some Chinese intellectuals and officials have kind words for India:

“India is a far more diverse country… a place with the second largest Muslim population in the world, and lots of ethnic minorities, and yet it organizes regular elections without conflict. China is 90 percent Han, so if India can conduct elections, so can China.” [Pang Yongzhing, a professor of international relations at Nankai University in Tianjin]

India, a paragon of manufacturing efficiency?

“To produce goods worth $10,000, for example, we need seven times more resources than Japan, nearly six times more than the United States and, perhaps most embarrassing, nearly three times more than India.” [Pan Yue, China’s environment minister]

Respect for intellectual property? He’s probably never visited a pirate desi Blockbuster store.

“In India there is a lot more room to move around… their capital markets are good, their banking sector is better than in China, and there is entrepreneurialism everywhere in India, along with well-protected intellectual property rights. All of these are things that China lacks.” [Zhang Jun, director of the China Center for Economic Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai]

Some desis have a disturbing attachment to authoritarian government, or perhaps (not so disturbing at all) just plain effectiveness:

There is constant talk these days of turning Mumbai, the southern commercial metropolis formerly known as Bombay, into a new Shanghai, China’s most glitteringly modern city… Such contrasts have left some Indians to remark, sometimes despairingly, about a “democracy price” that slows development… “I’m often approached by friends returning impressed from China, saying how our airports in Bombay and Delhi can’t compare,” said G. P. Deshpande, a longtime China scholar at Jawaharal Nehru University in Delhi. “When I tell them that these things come in a package, that you don’t just get the new airports, and I describe the package, though, they say no thank you.”

Finally, perhaps India too will get its Mideast invasions:

“As far as exporting democracy, it is only a matter of time before India gets the self-confidence to begin doing this.” [Subramanian Swamy, president of India’s Janata Party and former minister of law, commerce and justice]

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Brief film updates

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A whole bunch of stuff going on in the world of movies. Some we’ve missed; some yet to come:

  • Amitabh Bachchan — Film Society of Lincoln Center pays tribute to the actor by screening 12 of his films (estimated total running time: 3683 hours). The undisputed king of Bollywood also appears in person on April 15 to talk about his long and storied career (estimated total running time: 3683 hours). (via BBC News)
  • “Mughal-E-Azam” — Bollywood’s biggest film of all time is restored, colorized, re-recorded, and possibly molested (I mean, c’mon, they’ve done just about everything else to it). Film purists aren’t crying foul though. The production company behind the colorization says it was merely completing the unfulfilled dream of its creator. Playing in theaters now.
  • “Continuous Journey” — Ali Kazimi’s film won the Best Documentary Feature Audience Award at the 23rd San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. It documents a period when Canadians weren’t as nice as they are today:
    Continuous Journey is an inquiry into the largely ignored history of Canada’s exclusion of the South Asians by a little known immigration policy called the Continuous Journey Regulation of 1908. Unlike the Chinese and the Japanese, people from British India were excluded by a regulation that appeared fair, but in reality, was an effective way of keeping people from India out of Canada until 1948. As a direct result, only a half-mile from Canadian shores, the Komagata Maru was surrounded by immigration boats and the passengers were held in communicado ­ virtual prisoners on the ship. Thus began a dramatic stand-off which would escalate over the course of two months, becoming one of the most infamous incidents in Canadian history. [Continuous Journey]
  • “Morning Raga” — In their own words:
    Morning Raga is about the meeting of worlds. It is a story that brings the modern and traditional together, unites the past with present, Carnatic music with Western music, the comic with the tragic, fate and coincidence with individual choices. It is a story of our times where our worlds are interacting with each other. [Morning Raga]
    Even tougher to figure out is where it’s playing. As far as we can tell, it’s slowly popping up in theaters around the country.
  • “Bomb the System” — The title screams, “movie about the digestive consequences of a bad batch of pani puri.” The official web site says, “first feature in over 20 years to delve into the world of graffiti art.” Let’s hope they read this, and find some way to combine the two. The film (Exec: Kanwal Rekhi, Prods: Ben Rekhi, Smriti Mundhra) opens in L.A. and N.Y. on April 22. (thanks, Abhijay Prakash)
  • Kal Penn — Yahoo! Movies hosts production stills from the actor’s new flick, “A Lot Like Love.” Gawker, a Manhattan gossip blog, published this Penn-sighting from one of their readers:
    on the afternoon of sunday the 3rd, i saw kal penn (from the new superman sequel, the lead role in the movie adaptation of jhumpa lahiri’s bestselling book “the namesake” and the role of kumar in “harold and kumar go to white castle”) at whole foods in Columbus circle. he was wearing a knit wool cap, a black fleece patagonia jacket and a vest over the fleece. was it really that cold? he noticed me squinting at him, so i asked him, “what’s your name?” he replied, “kal.” i then asked him, “were you in a movie?” he said, “yes.” then, i asked him if the movie had been “harold and kumar go to white castle.” he replied in the affirmative and asked me if i had seen it. i replied honestly that i had not. He seemed to be annoyed and bewildered at the same time by my answer. i guess his annoyance was compunded by the fact that i am asian and the movie i asked about was supposed to be the movie that proved asians could produce a mainstream hit. well, it bombed at the box office. at least he has now gotten those two nice roles that i just mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph. [Gawker]

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Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

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While there’s considerable debate as to whether residents of Los Angeles read books, at the very least, we hold big festivals celebrating them. The tenth incarnation of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books lands later this month on the UCLA campus, and offers tons of signings, readings and discussion panels. Chitra Divakaruni, Pico Iyer and Ved Mehta are among the authors expected to hold court on the following topics:

Saturday, April 23

10:30 AM – The Challenges Facing Latin America: Politics & Art
Moderator: Marjorie Miller. Panelists: Ann Louise Bardach, Pico Iyer, Alvaro Vargas Llosa and Tom Miller.

11:00 AM – Writers in Exile
Moderator: Karen Stabiner. Panelists: Chris Abani, Ved Mehta and Loung Ung.

Sunday, April 24

11:30 AM – Fiction: Searching for Our Ideal Reader
Moderator Paula Woods. Panelists: Elizabeth Berg, Chitra Divakaruni, Janet Fitch and Lisa See.

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I’m a hustler, baby

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I’m a hustler, baby
I just want you to know
It ain’t where I been
But where I’m ’bout to go

–Jay-Z, ‘I Just Wanna Love U’

British author Preethi Nair self-published after her first novel was rejected everywhere (thanks, Punjabi Boy). She invented a PR persona out of whole cloth so publications wouldn’t catch on she was a one-woman band. She landed a three-book publishing deal, and the Beeb is filming one of her novels. Here’s the kicker: her fake PR persona was shortlisted for Publicist of the Year. Not content, Nair then turned her fictional life yet another novel. Meta, shameless, impressive!

Preethi Nair was born in Kerala, South India in 1971 and came to England as a child… she worked as a management consultant but gave it up to… become a writer… Jobless and having been rejected by most publishers, Preethi took the deposit out of the flat she was about to buy and set up her own publishing company… Not having enough money for a PR agency, she… appointed… Pru Menon (her alter ego) to shamelessly hype the book… she signed a three-book deal with HarperCollins. Preethi won the Asian Woman of Achievement award for her endeavours and Pru was shortlisted as Publicist of the Year for the PPC awards.

“100 Shades of White”, her first novel with HarperCollins has been bought by the BBC for a television adaptation and her third novel “Beyond Indigo” will be published in August, along with the reissue of “Gypsy Masala”. [Her own bio, natch]

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With a little help from my friends

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A Citibank call center worker in Pune allegedly stole $350K from NYC customers’ accounts via electronic transfer (via Slashdot). It sounds like he and 11 of his closest friends may have done the nasty via online banking:

Thomas, who worked in the callcentre for six months… had the secret pincodes of the customers’ e-mail IDs… In January, he roped in his friends and transferred money from four accounts of the bank’s New York-based customers into their own accounts, opened under fictitious names… The customers, from whose accounts the money had been withdrawn, alerted the bank officials in the US, after which the crime was traced to Pune…

… police sources said some of those arrested were employees of Msource [a subsidiary of Mphasis], Kalyaninagar. Police sources said the alleged mastermind [was] Ivan Samuel Thomas (30) of Sangamnagar…

Mphasis, which owns the call center, is a multinational with an office on Park Ave. It’s not known whether Thomas actually uttered the line, ‘Thank you, come again.’ Indian cops are gently questioning the suspects with their special brand of TLC.

ARR: DEL STOPS: 0

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Continental Airlines will add the first nonstop flight from the U.S. to India beginning Nov. 1, contingent on approval from the Indian government (via SAJA). The Newark (NYC)-New Delhi route will cosset passengers in the belly of a 777.

The only other nonstop from this continent is Air Canada’s Toronto-Delhi route. Also, Air India just added an LA-Frankfurt-Delhi flight. Thanks, open skies agreement!

See flight nerds’ discussion here. Previous posts: 1, 2, 3, 4

Kobe-inspired Kathak

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An Indian dance troupe incorporates Kobe Bryant’s moves into their latest creation:

The dribbling is quicksilver, strong and startlingly percussive. The jumps look effortless — and lofty. But this isn’t Staples Center, and instead of purple-and-yellow Laker jerseys, the garb consists of sherbet-colored silk kurtis, or tunics, cotton drawstring pants and hundreds of ankle bells. In fact, this isn’t a game of basketball but a rehearsal by Anjani’s Kathak Dance of India, a Diamond Bar-based company that Sunday at La Mirada Theatre will premiere a work inspired by hoops. “Kobe Bryant is my favorite,” gushes Anjani Ambegaokar, the 60-year-old dancer, teacher and choreographer who founded the company in 1985 but only began watching the Lakers on television a few years ago. “The kid is so graceful that the dancer in me started thinking, ‘How does he do that? He’s like an artist.’ I became interested in the rhythms of how they play the game and thought, ‘We can incorporate their moves and even sounds of bouncing balls into a Kathak-style piece.’” [Los Angeles Times]

Their new Kathak moves include a continuous shooting pattern dubbed “The Ball Hog,” a back-stabbing motion called “The Shaq,” and a simulated chokehold with crotch-thrusting labeled “The Eagle, Colo.”

Los Angeles Times: A jump shot, from Kobe to Kathak (free registration required)

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Hip-hop yoga: It’s about fucking time

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Everyone holding their breath over a hip-hop version of yoga can finally exhale:

(Russell) Simmons, the founder of Def Jam Records, released a video series on Wednesday titled, “Yoga Live”, with instructions set to 72 tracks of original hip-hop music — sounds that might have jarred the yogis of bygone days. Simmons said he tried to distil the spiritual from the physical in his tapes. “We packaged it intentionally in a way for people to digest the physical practice,” he told Reuters. “It’s not meant to get them worried about religion or spirituality.” [Reuters/Yahoo!]

It’s important to eliminate such worrisome items from yoga, as potential customers are already expected to have 99 problems (the bitch not being one, of course).

Reuters/Yahoo!: Yoga goes hip-hop as marketing takes hold

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Disappeared

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A while back Manish had a post featuring a multimedia exhibit titled “DISAPPEARED IN AMERICA.”

Since 9/11, thousands of American Muslims were detained in a security dragnet. To date, none have been prosecuted on terrorism charges. The majority of those detained were from the invisible underclass of cities like New York. They are the recent immigrants who drive our taxis, deliver our food, clean our restaurant tables, and sell fruit, coffee, and newspapers. The only time we see their faces are when we glance at the hack license in the taxi partition, or the ID card around the neck of a vendor.

SM Tipster “Joykee” sends us this article hot off the NYTimes press:

For years, the father said, he watched as his daughter, now 16, became more and more drawn to the family’s Muslim religion. At 14, she began wearing a full-length veil and teaching religion classes at mosques around the city.

A year ago, she withdrew from her Manhattan high school because, a school official said, she felt uncomfortable with typical teenage banter. She told her family she wanted to go to an Islamic all-girls school, and when they could not afford to send her, she chose to study at home.

The father, a Bangladeshi watch salesman who describes himself as far more devoted to American education than to prayer after 13 years as an immigrant illegally in the United States, said he pushed for his daughter to return to public school.

Then last fall, the daughter he also describes as loving Bollywood soap operas and shopping with girlfriends startled him and her mother by seeking their approval to marry a young American Muslim man they had never met and whom she barely knew. The father refused the marriage overtures, which were made by the young man’s father in a call from Michigan.

A few months later, when the teenager stayed out overnight for the first time, the father, fearing an elopement, went to the police for help.

It is a decision he regrets deeply. His daughter and another 16-year-old girl are now described by the government as would-be suicide bombers and are being held in a detention center for illegal immigrants in Pennsylvania. He is sure that his visit to the police set off the F.B.I. investigation that led to a chilling assertion, in a government document, that the girls are “an imminent threat to the security of the United States based on evidence that they plan to be suicide bombers.” Family and friends call that absurd.

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Skin

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I become so disturbed when marriage ads in Indian papers specify skin color (not that I often look through marriage ads :). Several dating sites do it to. If I catch one of my parents make a comment about fair skin being desirable in a mate I chastise them vociferously. There are very few things that make my blood boil as much as this issue. All the more so because I know that despite my best intentions, society has shaped my thoughts in the same way. Asians in Media reports on the obvious bias on Asian fashion magazine covers.

fairskinnedcovers.jpg

It’s an open secret that the majority of Asian parents have a bias towards fairer skin. Is the same true for Asian fashion magazines in Britain?

Aside from the horror stories of girls applying dangerous chemicals to their skins, the image of a beautiful Asian girl as fair with coloured contact lenses and dark brown hair is constantly thrown at us. Surely Asian fashion publications are partly to blame for this?

AiM asked two writers who have been in the industry for years, and both say the problem lies with wider culture and society, coupled with a lack of professional Asian models.

Nilpa Bharadia is former acting editor of Asian Woman/Bride magazine and recently launched the Asian Bridal Look Book with her business partner Kiren. She says the decision to use European and Brazillian models for fashion shoots is never made lightly.

“The simple fact of the matter is that if we had a choice of an agency standard Asian model, i.e 5’10” plus, and a size 8 and with beautiful features, and a white model – we would cast the Asian girl everytime,” shes says.

“It’s not that the Asian girls that used to come through the door weren’t beautiful, many were, and we made numerous exceptions on height etc. where possible. But unfortunately they were the exception to the rule.”

I’m not buying this last argument. If you stand in any supermarket line you will note that fair skin dominates regardless of the ethnicity being targeted. Do all those ethnicities lack enough model material? The editors being interviewed pointed out one Brit magazine (i-D) they claim uses “extremely black-skinned” models WHEN they hire black. I flipped through several of their mag covers and didn’t see any black models at all. Later in the article the writer presses the editors and gets to the more “logical” reasons for this bias. Continue reading →