Cruise with Raj

Posted on by

This is just downright brilliant –

‘ApprenticeÂ’ cruise to set sail …An eight-night cruise with the theme of the hit NBC show will sail from New York to the Caribbean on Sept. 26, after a bon voyage party in Manhattan with a send-off from Donald Trump. Cast members from the show — including Bill Rancic, the first Apprentice, and Stacie Jones Upchurch, Jennifer Crisafulli and Raj Bhakta from the second season — will be on board. The trip will take place on the Carnival Legend cruise ship.

A ship full of women, most of whom have seen you on TV – methinks Raj will be thoroughly entertained. Stay tuned for the “Cruise with the cast of Sepia Mutiny.”

Vijayï¿œs caddie Singh-ing the blues

Posted on by

Golfer Vijay Singh may lose the services of the caddie that accompanied him during his record-setting year on the the PGA Tour.

Caddie Dave “Buddy” Renwick, who spent 18 months carrying Singh’s bag, complained that the world’s top golfer was unduly harsh on him, and rarely friendly.

“My heart just wasn’t in it, even at the end of last year when we were winning nearly every week. I just wasn’t getting the respect I deserve,” said Renwick to The Scotsman. “I never got a ‘good morning’ from Vijay. Or ‘good club’ after a shot. Or ‘have a nice night’ at the end of a day.”

What did Renwick get from Singh?

One million dollars…to carry a bag…select appropriate clubs…and travel to some of the most beautiful places in the world.

Kudos to Renwick for freeing himself from slavedriver Singh’s laborious death grip.

Luckily for the rest of us, this opens the door to a wonderful opportunity: Mr. Singh, even though my experience with golf has only come in miniature and video game form — for a million dollars — I will do your bidding, gladly accept a copious amount of abuse, and even throw in an interpretive disco dance for your amusement. My resume is on its way.

The Scotsman: Caddie sings a sad song

Continue reading →

Brain hemmorage kills actor Puri

Posted on by

Veteran actor Amrish Puri died Wednesday morning at a hospital in Bombay. He was 72.

Various reports indicate that Puri suffered a brain hemmorage, and was in a coma at the time of his passing. He was also undergoing treatment for malaria, and was in the hospital just one week earlier for a surgical procedure.

Puri, who started acting at a late age, is best known for his roles in “Mr. India,” “Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge,” and “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.”

He is survived by his wife, son and daughter.

Rediff: Amrish Puri is dead

Continue reading →

Outsourcing your algebra homework

Posted on by

At the tender age of 28 I have already become a bitter old man. Kids these days, I just don’t understand. When I was young we played Pacman and Frogger on the Atari. Now they have Halo and Grand Theft Auto. I used an AM/FM Walkman and now they have these Ipod things. This news however just pushed me over the edge. Now you can actually outsource your algebra homework if you were to properly abuse a new tutoring service by Growing Stars Inc.

Twice in a week, Ann Maria, a sixth grader at Silver Oak Elementary School, California logs on to the internet from home after school hours. Ann is not chatting up her friends.

She is connecting to her personal tutor, already online, armed with headset and a pen mouse sitting in a call centre like cubicle almost a timezone away in Panampillynagar, Kochi, Kerala.

Your neighbourhood tuition teacher, riding on the Information Technology Enabled Service (ITES) wave, has gone global and his monthly pay packet turned meatier – the 17 teachers who work with the Growing Star Infotech (P) Ltd will testify. The firm a subsidiary of California-based Growing Stars Inc went online in January last year.

Ok, I know I am being unfair. This is a legitimate service. The testimonials are glowing. Still, you guys can see the potential for abuse by crafty kids can’t you? If my memory serves me correct though, Indian parents teach math with a rolling pin in one hand to smack you if you don’t properly carry out addition. THAT’S going to be hard to pull off virtually. Continue reading →

So, Bruce Springsteen Inspired Rabbi to Make a Sufi Album in Punjabi

Posted on by

Rabbi Shergill.jpg It sounds like a joke right? So, Bruce Springsteen, a Rabbi and a Sufi walk into a bar? Well, I did take some liberties, he’s not a Rabbi, he’s a Sikh (oh, that makes it simpler) named Rabbi Shergill who recorded a song commonly referred to on the web as the “Bulla ki Janna” number (I have no clue, I just found him b/c Mira Nair compared him to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.)

Shergill is a crossover fusion artist who combines Western and Eastern music, but the articles I’ve read aren’t precise. Sometimes they say he draws upon Heavy Metal, and othertimes Rock. Sometimes they say he employs Punjabi Folk, other times Sufi Music (which is punjabi, and not classical, but hardly folk either). Here’s his backstory:

Shergill fell in love with music after he went to a Bruce Springsteen concert while at school. Now he has a fan following that includes the likes of Amitabh Bachchan and V.S. Naipaul. [cite]

I like his look and attitude:

But why an album in Punjabi? “Did you know Punjabi is the ninth most spoken language in the world?” is his swift retort before he adds, “It is my pride.” [cite]

He clearly has the ambition to match:

He asserts that he aims big – big stadiums, a large audience and loads of fame. “My father’s anonymity, despite his talent, made him scream aloud. I want to be heard. I use my ego to further my cause.” [cite]

Continue reading →

‘Bhowani Junction’

Posted on by

Aishwarya’s crossover plan is running on IST: old-time starlet Ava Gardner, who’s currently being impersonated in The Aviator, crossed over way back in the ’50s. Gardner starred in Bhowani Junction, a 1956 film about an Anglo-Indian struggling with identity in post-Partition India.

I haven’t seen it, so I’ve got no idea whether it was more respectful than Gunga Din and its ilk. The character does try ‘going native,’ and she does wear brownface, though it seems subtle. Money quote: ‘I thought I could overcome my guilt by becoming a Sikh!’ Reel Movie Critic has the plot summary:

Ava Gardner delivers a stellar performance of a ravishing nurse in the English army in India in 1947… She initially is romantically involved with another “chi-chi” (half-breed)… She is the victim of an attempted rape by her brutal co-worker, Lt. McDaniel (Lionel Jeffries), which sends her into the safe and strict arms of a traditional Indian, Ranjit [Singh] Kasel (Francis Mathews).  Draped in a sari, she makes bold political/racial statements by showing up at various military events dressed in traditional Indian attire. But she seems to appear to her British colleagues to be trying too hard to claim her new ethnic identity… Ultimately she has a romance with a stoic, brave Anglo-Saxon British Officer… she realistically declines to return with him as his wife to live in England, certain she will be treated like a half-breed outsider in that society.

Chowk fills in the backstory:

… it is quite similar in theme to Deepa Mehta’s ‘Earth 1947’ which also deals with Partition through the eyes of a Parsi girl, another outsider to Indian society… Fifty years on, people still talk about when Ava Gardner came to Lahore to film this movie. I think every man of the previous generation fell in love with her then… it says a lot about an actor or actress who is willing to take on a complex role in a different culture – like Christopher Lee who took on Jinnah back in 1997.

Continue reading →

First Cell Phones, now TV sets at IG International

Posted on by

Besharam!

A steamy adult movie screened on television sets at the international airport in New Delhi has baffled authorities, who had installed them for entertainment of passengers. “I have conducted preliminary inquiry of staff in the electronics department. They said the movie was part of an AIDS awareness programme,” Indira Gandhi International Airport officiating director Mandeep Lal told the agency on Saturday. The adult film appeared on all television sets installed in the airport, prompting passengers to complain to the authorities. But it was taken off the air only after 20 long minutes.

GASP! Didn’t they get the memo? THERE IS NO SEX IN INDIA! All of those humans come from a highly sophisticated form of Vedic cloning. The Kama Sutra is a trick by Westerners to weaken young, pure, Indians and take their mind off of schooling.

I know what happened. These guys were watching a video, and accidentally tripped a switch and … no?

Lal ruled out the possibility that the staff in the electronic department were clandestinely viewing the adult film in the cable operator’s room without realising it was being screened on all TV sets. “We don’t allow any such things (adult films) to come even near our office,” he said.

Well. Allrighty then. Any ideas?

[Via Amardeep, story from the HT]

The tufani entrepreneur

Posted on by

The PR machine formerly known as Mira Nair says fast and cheap is where it’s at (via India Uncut):

When you have a big budget, like a Harry Potter, you have that many more people to answer to. You are simply one part of the machine that takes it over. It’s actually the freedom, the creative freedom, that is imperative for me. It comes only when the stakes are really low financially. That’s why I had total freedom to make a Salaam Bombay, or to make a Monsoon Wedding or to make a Namesake… If you have a big budget, you have that many more men in suits to deal with…

I like to do things unobtrusively and quietly, without much fanfare. People often don’t know what we are up to until it’s over. And that’s the secret.

She whips out her population and lays it on the table:

Let’s just face facts: our Indian cinema audience is now bigger than the Hollywood audience. So it’s not about wanting to be what they are, it’s about them opening their eyes to us…

On desi provincialism:

The extraordinary irony in making Mississippi Masala was that the African-American community and the Indian community were remarkably similar — in their love for family, in their communal sort of way for operating, in religion even, in that sort of emphasis on family bond and God for instance. But would an Indian ever cross the track into an African-American family? No way.

Ain’t this some BULLSH…

Posted on by

How you livin’, readers? Are you fine? Or are you just okay? More importantly, has your ire gone away?

Well get ready, I’m about to stir it up again. From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

WUSL-FM (Power 99) conceded yesterday that an on-air routine by morning shock jocks Star and Buc Wild was “racially inflammatory” and pulled an audio clip of it off the station Web site.
Community-affairs director Loraine Ballard Morrill, who has fielded more than 130 angry e-mails and phone calls, said the station reprimanded the employee who posted the clip on the Web…

Please understand– I’m THRILLED that mainstream media is picking up on this very important story. I’m also heartened by the fact that Power99 is…um…starting to pay attention.

They are partially correct; the employee who chose to post that clip on the Power99 site wasn’t wise to do so, and it is nice to see the station doing…something.

But something is not enough.

Power99 “conceded”? I don’t need concessions, I need responsibility. Honour. Integrity. If Loraine Ballard Morrill was the ideal Community Affairs Director, she’d sincerely own the station’s gaffe, she’d get it, she’d make amends. But nothing regarding this incident is ideal… Continue reading →