A passage to Brooklyn

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A Brooklyn theater company is presenting a minimalist staging of E.M. Forster’s novel A Passage to India:

… the company uses a single, brushed-metal set, simple white costumes, a few chairs and props, and a small cast of actors to present Forster’s multilayered story of cultural conflict in colonial India… there are some clever bits of invention in Ms. Meckler’s staging – for example, a lumbering elephant represented by a pyramid of softly swaying actors… no more illuminating is the decision to recast the tale as a flashback, and employ the novel’s most prominent Hindu character, Godbole, as narrator…

[Forster] clearly meant Dr. Aziz to embody the unfettered emotionalism that he observed in Indian Muslims. As played by Mr. Caan, he is temperate and considered, a perfectly turned-out, machine-tooled product of British colonialism. Dr. Aziz concludes the play with a passionate speech denouncing the British occupying forces, but you wouldn’t be surprised to see him turn around and invite his enemy to join him in a game of cricket.

At Brooklyn Academy of Music, Harvey Theater, 651 Fulton Street, Fort Greene through Saturday.

What do the Dalai Lama and Bin Laden have in common?

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A few days ago I blogged about the Indian government possibly having spotted Bin Laden. Soon after, some FBI agents were dispactched to India but nobody was sure why. Now several newsites, such as the dailytimes.com, are reporting the following:

A senior FBI official visited India last week to alert intelligence agencies of the possibility of Osama Bin Laden sneaking into India, official sources said on Monday.

The Pakistan-based official sought Indian assistance for joint operations by Indian and US forces to nab Bin Laden if he crossed over to India from northeastern Pakistan.

The officialÂ’s visit followed IndiaÂ’s reportsÂ’ of spotting Bin Laden in northeastern Pakistan, close to the Pakistan-China-India border, sources added.

They said the FBI official met senior officials of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), Intelligence Bureau (IB), Border Security Force (BSF) and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP).

If this is true it lends more credence to my previous entry. Hey, sneaking over to India worked for the Dalai Lama.

Tyler Cowen in The Hindu Times

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Our man in Delhi – interviewed by the Hindu Times – Marginal Revolution: My talk as reported by The Hindu Times

“His ideas might give most art lovers, especially the die-hard supporters of the culture cause in Bengal, more than a sleepless night. But Tyler Cowen, Professor of Economics at George Mason University in the United States, firmly believes that Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Leonardo da Vinci and even Shakespeare were businessmen and is willing to prove it. …”I don’t think that India has anything to worry about on the count of culture. It has a vibrant culture; it has a great food culture too. India is growing and the purchasing power of people is also increasing. There is more foreign culture that is coming into India, but India has always had the ability to integrate different influences from the Mughals to the British and make it distinctly Indian. The earlier styles were a fusion of culture from Persia, China, but always with an Indian touch,” he says. …A “hero” that most commercial Hindi movie directors would love, his theory resemble the ideas they have been have been selling for years. “I know people criticise Hindi movies saying that it is not like Satyajit Ray. But I think that they require as much talent as a Ray film. They have a dreamlike quality, similar to Shakespeare. It appeals to universal human emotions and everyone wants to fall in love,” he adds.”

Tyler – you rock!

Sarita Choudhury in ‘Sakharam Binder’

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Sarita Choudhury is starring in acclaimed playwright Vijay Tendulkar’s work ‘Sakharam Binder’ in Manhattan. This play, Tendulkar’s most famous work, was once banned in India:

“Sakharam Binder”… tells the story of Sakharam’s seventh and eighth “birds” (as his envious friend Dawood calls Sakharam’s women). Laxmi (Anna George) is shy, submissive and pious, whereas Champa (Sarita Choudhury), her successor, is brash, voluptuous and spoiled… Ms. Choudhury radiates a proud, willful acuity that reads as desperate indignation as Champa shirks, malingers and turns to alcohol to blunt her disgust at Sakharam’s sexual demands…

Mr. White vividly captures the strange and complex pathology of Sakharam, who seems to want to please his “birds” even as he bullies them and who speaks like a freethinking crusader for women’s rights one minute and like an philistine scornful of their devotion to him the next… Like Brecht’s Mother Courage, he exploits a corrupt system for personal advantage, then discovers that the price of playing the game is everything he hoped to protect.

The last play I heard of starring Choudhury was the off-Broadway ‘Roar’ by Palestinian-American playwright Betty Shamieh. I ran into Shamieh at a BBQ; despite her heavy subject matter, she’s very funny in person.

Part of the IAAC’s Tendulkar Festival, through Nov. 14 at 59E59 Theaters, 59 East 59th St., Manhattan.

Represent! (-ative)

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Jindal elected to Congress: 33-year-old Bobby Jindal was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Louisiana in yesterday’s national election. As expected, Jindal won decisively with 78% of the vote. Several challengers split the remaining vote, with no one else getting more than 7%. Jindal follows Dalip Singh Saund, a California Congressman in the ’50s, as only the second South Asian American ever elected to Congress.

Aside from being of Punjabi origin, Jindal and Saund’s stories differ markedly. Saund was a progressive lettuce farmer who attended UC Berkeley, while Jindal is a conservative Rhodes Scholar who attended Brown and Oxford. But they both persevered in the face of electoral disappointment: Jindal recently lost a close race for Louisiana governor, while Saund won a race for a judgeship but later had to re-fight the campaign:

Saund ran for his friend’s office and won. But because he had only been a citizen less than a year, he was barred from taking office. A petition signed by twice the number of people who had elected him did nothing to help his cause… Two years later, he again ran for the judgeship and won despite anti-immigrant bashings made by his opponent who had tried to incite the public with sayings like “Hindu for Judge.”

Other elected desi politicians at the state legislature level include Nikki Randhawa-Haley and long-serving doyen Kumar Barve.

Previous posts on Jindal: 1, 2, 3, 4

Cue the bloodsucking monkeys

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From Yahoo Asia:

“They hide in trees and swoop on unsuspecting children loitering about in the temple premises or walking by, clawing them and even sucking a bit of blood,” Bani Kumar Sharma, a priest at the Kamakhya temple in Assam state, told The Associated Press. The temple, one of the most famous in India, is located in Gauhati, Assam’s capital.

“I was returning home from school when a monkey suddenly pounced on me, scratched my head and hand and pushed me to the ground,” said Jolly Sharma, a 6-year-old girl.

Hmmm. These sound awfully similar to the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz.

Will South Asians turnout?

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My mom was lazy and didn’t register in time (plus she was afraid she would be called to jury duty). My brother was lazy and didn’t secure an absentee ballot in time. Is the brown turning out? From Rediff.com:

South Asians, including Indian Americans, turned up in unusually large numbers to vote in New York City, reflecting what observers say is a nationwide trend in the 2004 presidential election.

“I have not only taken part in election, but have been an observer for many years. I have never seen such huge number of people from the South Asian community standing in queue to cast votes,” said Morshed Alam, former NYC School Board member and commissioner for the city’s voter assistance commissioner. “This is just unbelievable.”

That’s what I like to hear. Continue reading →

Getting Sexy at Office

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Ally McBeal ain’t got nuttin on Bombay – Getting sexy at work? No crime – The Economic Times

“Flirting can be fun if confined within limits. My marital status has never stopped my colleagues from flirting with me. And frankly, I quite enjoy the attention and the harmless stuff. I know where to draw the line,” Samant, says. Using sexuality to further career is not entirely an alien concept in the Indian corporate milieu. As conventional behaviour takes a backseat, it is time to do away with inhibitions. Professionals are no longer scared to admit ambitions.
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