Cue the X-files music

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UFObase.jpg

Just days ago I mentioned that a bunch of wacky conspiracy stories have emerged recently in order to explain the origin of the tsunami. Although this one has nothing to do with the tsunami, it was just too good to pass up. From India Daily:

Kongka La is the low ridge pass in the Himalayas (the blue oval in the map). It is in the disputed India-China border area in Ladakh. In the map the red zone is the disputed area still under Chinese control in the Aksai Chin area. The Chinese held northeastern part is known as Aksai Chin and Indian South West is known as Ladakh. This was where Indian and Chinese army fought major war in 1962. The area is one of the least accessed area in the world and by agreement the two countries do not patrol that part of the border. According to many tourists, Buddhist monks and the local people of Ladakh, Indian Army and Chinese Military maintain the line of control. But there is something much more serious happening in this area.

According to the few locals people on the Indian and Chinese side, this is where the UFOs are seen coming out of the ground, According to many, the UFO underground bases are in this region and both the Indian and Chinese Government know this very well.

Now please keep in mind that UFO stands for “Unidentified Flying Object” and so it doesn’t necessarily equate to aliens, but what else might it be?

Recently, some Hindu pilgrims on their way to Mount Kailash from the Western pass, came across strange lights in the sky. …The pilgrims at that stage started quizzing the Indian border petrol personnel. According to them, the security personnel told them that they are ordered not to allow any one near the area of interest and it is true that strange objects come out from under the ground with amplified and modulated lights. IndiaÂ’s Special Forces and possible visit the area by intelligence agencies.

But why in this area? Is it due to the remoteness, or something else? Continue reading →

Harold and Kumar Sign on for Two More

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The Arizona Republic is reporting that both John Cho and Kal Penn have signed on for two more sequels to the wildly popular (at least with the Sepia Mutiny crowd), Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle film. The writing has begun on the first sequel with the internet rumors being correct, it is entitled “Harold and Kumar Go to Amsterdam.”

Whether or not it’s going to be made depends on the financial receipts from DVD sales and rentals,” Kal Penn adds. “If you liked the movie, please rent or buy it – it’ll assure that we’ll bring you another one next year.”

As indicated in another SM post, the “Extreme Unrated” DVD of the film went on sale this past Tuesday, so go out there and buy it now! Continue reading →

A flurry of wavelets

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Although it appears a Kerala baby girl was not named Tsunami after all, a newborn boy from the Andamans has swiped the sobriquet (via Boing Boing). Meet Tsunami Roy:

“It was early morning Sunday, when I made my pregnant wife a cup of tea and woke her up. She was just about to take a sip when we felt the first jolt of the quake…” After hoisting his injured wife and [older] son on to the rickshaw, Roy pedaled and pushed the rickshaw as fast as he could up and away from the shore toward a nearby rocky slope…

The nurse… rigged up a makeshift curtain, laid the 26-year-old Namita down on a bed of dried leaves and grass and ordered the men to get some clean cloth, thread and a bowl of hot water. “A few hours later the child was born…

“It was the doctors who suggested we name the boy Tsunami and we also liked the name and decided to call him that. After all it is a name everyone will instantly notice and remember.”

It’s a little bit morbid and a little bit poetic. It’s not quite like naming him Bubonic, but much more eyebrow-raising than just plain Venkat. Ah well, people will never forget his birthday.

Of course, they’ll also be in mourning. No matter the name, there’s nothing he can do about the date per se. He joins all those poor saps born around Christmas, New Year’s, final exams and 9/11 as people cheated out of their own remembrances.

Protecting the Homeland

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Days after being sworn in to office, Bobby Jindal has received his congressional committee assignments. Chief amongst them will be his presence on the Homeland Security Committee, which is a newly created one. From Sunnetwork.org:

“I am thrilled by my committee assignments,” Jindal, only the second Indian American to be elected to the US House of Representatives, said after receiving his official committee assignments yesterday. “I have been given three great opportunities and in each capacity I will have the chance to hear and weigh-in on issues of great importance to this country and the people of Louisiana” (his contituency).

“In this post 9/11 world, there is nothing more important than ensuring the safety of America and Americans,” Jindal said. “We need to make sure America is a country where our children don’t have to grow up and live in fear of terrorism.”

His other assignments include the Committee on Education and the Workforce and the Committee on Resources. These assignments took me by surprise considering the fact the Jindal has been known mostly for his healthcare expertise (best applied to the Health Committee). An assignment on a prominent committee probably means that the “Big Tent” party will be grooming him for high visibility.

Another way to MUTINY!

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On a much more light-hearted note, Sepia Mutiny is now on Friendster!

Whether you just want to seem more popular by having loads of friends (cough! guilty!) or you want another way to access our RSS feed, add us. When controversies like the Power99 outrage go down, we can use the Bulletin Board feature to alert you or disseminate information, if appropriate. SM is starting to feel like a little community and this development is a natural extension of that.

Uf-oh. Enough with the serious merits of such a maneuver…just add us already. All the other cool kids are doing it. Besides, you know you can never have enough fake relationships on social networking programs… 😉

Fisking the ‘Bride and Prejudice’ campaign

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The U.S. version of the Bride and Prejudice trailer was recently released (thanks, Abhi). It’s getting heavy promotion, it runs before The Aviator in New York City.

What happened in the marketing speaks volumes about how the world perceives Americans. The trailer has been recut not as a musical but as a romantic comedy. The U.S. version cuts down the bhangra centerpiece and the pajama song from the international trailer. The plot has been simplified, like the U.S. version of Bombay Dreams; the subplot with the second male lead has been removed.

In a nod to the U.S., Martin Henderson gets a lot more lines, the R&B artist Ashanti is featured prominently in the voiceover, Indira Verma makes a crack about American Idol, and there are a couple of Baywatch, L.A. and surfer shots that weren’t in the international trailer. India’s Third World-ness is played up for comic effect, there’s no mention of Amritsar in the subtitle and there are precious few turbaned guys for a film set in Punjab (the ones who do exist hurry by, out of focus).

I watched the trailer live last night and heard very little audience reaction. Either it fell flat, or the audience didn’t know what to think. The serpent dance sequence at the very end drew a few titters. It wasn’t what I expected from a New York crowd, which is generally pretty down with desi culture.

Continue reading →

“Israel-India nuke test caused tsunami.” Huh?!?

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There is always a lot of junk science and numerous conspiracy theories that follow any great disaster. The tsunami in Asia is no different. From the Jerusalem Post:

The earthquake that struck the Indian Ocean on December 26, triggering a series of huge waves called tsunami, “was possibly” caused by an Indian nuclear experiment in which “Israeli and American nuclear experts participated,” an Egyptian weekly magazine reported Thursday.

According to Al-Osboa’, India, in its heated nuclear race with Pakistan, has lately received sophisticated nuclear know-how from the United States and Israel, both of which “showed readiness to cooperate with India in experiments to exterminate humankind.”

Since 1992, the magazine argued, leading geological centers in Britain, Turkey and other countries, warned of the need “not to hold nuclear experiments in the region of the Indian Ocean known as ‘the Fire Belt,’ in which the epicenter of the earthquake lies.

Continue reading →

Small city Indians want (surprise!) western goods

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Wealth, in India, is spreading from the big cities into the smaller ones. And with it comes an expansion of demand for Western goods, stoked by advertisements. Now desis in smaller cities want KFC, blue jeans, Fords (huh?) and (of course) premium alcohol. I wonder how many of star’s advertisers are making big bank in India? Maybe we should spread a list of their names to the Indian press — that would get their attention fast! Nobody wants to stumble in an emerging market. [Anybody have that list yet?] Read the whole article on the NYT (no permalink avail, unfortunately), snippets provided below:

KFC’s parent, Yum Brands, now has 100 KFC and Pizza Hut restaurants in India, 30 opened in 2004, and a goal of 1,000 by 2014. To realize such growth, the chains have begun a seemingly inexorable march into the country’s smaller boomtowns, cities like Coimbatore and Cochin in the south, and Jaipur and Meerut in the north, where middle-class Indians – who increasingly crave localized Western foods, regional flavors and ingredients infused into the pizza, pasta or poultry – have hailed their arrival. As India’s galloping economy has extended to its smaller cities, a younger population with expendable income is finding many Western and upmarket domestic products, brands and services increasingly accessible. Nearly 35 Indian cities have a population exceeding a million, and proliferating shopping malls cater to the rapidly growing consumer class.

Continue reading →

The hardest working pshrynk in the world

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You might think the hardest working shrink in the world would be in LA or NYC, dealing with rich neurotics. Or, perhaps this person is working with the armed forces, helping soldiers deal with the tragedies of war.

But you would be wrong. The clear winner for the hardest working shrink in the world goes to … [tabla roll please] ….

Ganesan, the “only psychiatrist for 1.3 million of the world’s most traumatized people. His roving practice along this island nation’s eastern shore stretches over 150 miles, all of it devastated by last week’s tsunami.”

Huh? These people don’t need to be asked about their mothers, they need somebody to patch up their bodies! Well, that’s what he thinks too:

“To talk about psychological needs when you’ve got thousands of people using one toilet in a refugee camp — it’s absurd,” says Ganesan, who goes by one name as is common here, talking above the din in the office where he is coordinating medical supplies for refugees. “It’s not what a doctor should do.” In these traumatic days, Ganesan has tossed dozens of corpses into the back of his pickup, distributed medicine to children, coordinated efforts of hundreds of foreign aid workers from dozens of countries, buried a friend and, just for a moment yesterday, had a quiet session with a violently psychotic young man crippled by delusions and drug addiction.

Continue reading →

Stand up. For all of us.

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Richard Lewis & Thea Mitchem
Power99 WUSL-FM
440 Domino Lane
Philadelphia, PA 19128

Dear Power99/Clear Channel/lowly radio intern,

How are you? I hope you are well rested and relaxed, that way the contents of this letter will be better absorbed. How am I? Why thank you for not asking! IÂ’ll bluntly tell you; I am MAD.

Earlier this week, your prized morning “talent” Star thought it would be funny to call an Indian Customer Service agent for the sole purpose of threatening her with assault while verbally abusing her. His justification for this outrageous lack of decency was her race; she was foreign, “a rat-eater”, potentially involved with outsourcing, and that made her okay to target.

Wrong.

This was inappropriate, disrespectful, violent and below you. It was below all of us. That didnÂ’t stop you from publicizing a clip of StarÂ’s verbal assault on your stationÂ’s website before hastily retracting it a few days ago.

Since you took the mp3 off of your site, you must be at least slightly aware that you were in trouble. Please allow me to dispel any confusion regarding this matter: you ARE in trouble. You are in trouble with me and every other good American.

Our soldiers are dying to protect our freedom and our values. Those values donÂ’t include hate.

You can make amends.

You can take responsibility, and own your error in judgment.

You can reach out to the South Asian community and apologize for this unconscionable incident.

You can apologize to the woman that Star and his amoral crew harassed so wantonly.

You can discipline the DJ, as well as the staffers who perpetrated this revolting act.

You can clean up your own mess by airing PSAs that speak out against the ignorance and hate that YOUR programming may potentially incite.

I will conclude by stating that if you do not respond to this letter or its requests appropriately, you should consider yourself on notice: your unprincipled behavior will have social, public and fiscal ramifications and I swear to you, they will hurt. Stop the violence. Change starts with you.

With hope that you will do the right thing,

listen: all you people who were or are moved by this bullshit situation, who think, “yeah…i should do something”, right before you succumb to inertia and to-do lists and daily life…

that was for you.

you didn’t even have to write a letter. i did it for you. now do something for me. do it for “steena” who suffered through Star’s hatred for no reason. do it for your dad, because someone heckled him like that thirty-five years ago, when he came here to get rich for you. do it for your mom, who was afraid to wear indian things in new jersey, in 1987, for fear of attack from “dot-busters”. do it for them all, i implore you.

however.

if you don’t feel a familiar sadness whilst reading the paragraph i just wrote, if you are one of the lucky ones and you walk on streets paved with gold, and you live somewhere where it never rains, and you have always been accepted, respected and treated kindly…then may you always be so blessed. may one of us live in nirvana, where it is safe. may one of us not suffer the humiliation, the pain, the isolation that hatred brings. may one of us be so lucky.

so if you get some time in your golden, respect-laden nirvana, do it for those of us who aren’t as fortunate as you.

do it for all of us.

in other words, do it for you.