Hated by desi brides worldwide

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The advertising campaign for BritAsian sausage company “Mr. Singh’s Bangras” (a pun on bangers and bhangra) recently won a major award. The concept behind the ads is simple enough to describe in pictures:

That’s right – they used edible ink to print the casing in “henna patterns” and create the first ever “branded sausage.” I’m waiting for the UK government to start printing health warnings directly on foodstuffs that are bad for your heart such as “eating this weiner will make yours a little limper.”

I really hope Daljit Singh, the company proprietor, is married already because he has just earned the enmity of every desi bride around the world. If this campaign gets widespread airplay, what do you think most people will think of when they see a chubby brown hennaed calf peeking out from underneath a red lehnga?

You can see the video version directly on the company website.

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Jai vs. Bhay ho, slumdog fight

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It’s election season again in India, and with an 80% reduction in Bollyflix released this year (a side effect of the finance crisis), the real action is in political ads. Recently, Congress bought the exclusive rights to play Jai Ho at its rallies for a whole year, much to the dismay of the BJP which objected that “Anyone should be able to use the song. ‘Jai Ho’ should not belong to any one; it belongs to the country.” [link]

Congress wasn’t just interested in playing the original song, it actually redid the whole thing, gutting the original and producing a muzaked easy-listening patriotic version for use in a political ad:

The BJP struck back with Bhay Ho, a dark tale of international terror:

Both of these clips hint at what a mainstream Indian studio would have done with Slumdog, assuming that they had been interested in the concept at all.

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India as backdrop for Israeli debate

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Shashwati recently sent me links to these dueling Israeli PSAs about military service that are set in South Asia and far more amusing than Zohan. (Why did I watch that? Why?)

The first clip uses shame to try to discourage draft evasion, the second restages the first but uses shame to encourage conscientious objection. The setting is a bunch of Israeli tourists in an “Indian” teahouse discussing what their military service was like to try to impress a generic shiksa (blond in the first clip and brunette in the second). Each clip starts the same – a waiter offers cha and this touches off reminiscences about how “in the army the entire unit would have shared just this much tea.” And it ends with the same moral, do the wrong thing and you’ll embarass yourself in front of the girl.

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Two “Lucky” Films

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Since my son was born two and a half years ago, I have pretty much given up on staying current on Indian cinema. It’s difficult to get out to the movies, and our local Indian store really doesn’t seem to have a very good collection of stuff. I saw more Indian movies on the plane from Mumbai to Newark in January than I probably did in all of 2008.

On a recent day-trip to New York, we picked up two DVDs of what might be termed “anti-Bollywood” Hindi films that might get us back in the habit, Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!, and Luck By Chance.

By anti-Bollywood, I mean films that try to be “realistic” rather than sentimental, and that have limited use of songs to accompany, rather than interrupt, the plot of the film (the “diegesis,” for you film geeks). Many conventional Bollywood films don’t have written scripts, and star-power, branding, and memorable songs often have more to do with the success of those films than acting skill, or good, believable stories. In the old days, the emphasis on realism in Indian cinema was mainly the province of art-house directors, and mainly involved glum themes and a certain ponderousness. Happily, in the past few years, with the rise of Indian multiplexes, a realist sensibility has started to take hold on the margins of Bollywood itself. To my eye, the movement started with gangster films, and directors like R.G. Varma. But now it seems like we’re increasingly seeing a broader range of themes and styles of filmmaking in this space: an anti-Bollywood Bollywood. (Meanwhile, the same-old same-old of Hindi commercial cinema sputters along, effectively unchanged.)

Below are my brief reviews of Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! and Luck by Chance. Continue reading →

Nazar-a blog by UT Austin students

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I recently received an email from a blog/online magazine called Nazar. They asked if we could link to them in our blogroll (bottom of the comments column). We get requests like this all the time. We have a very simple policy (stated in our FAQ): we only link to blogs that one of us actually reads or follows, even occasionally. However, we always check out each link we receive. Nazar was a pleasant surprise, not only because it has a beautiful design, but because it is really cool to see another (much younger) group of dedicated writers/bloggers who saw a need and took the opportunity to fill a gap:

Nazar – A South Asian Perspective , is a brand new online magazine that caters to the South Asian population at The University of Texas at Austin. One of our primary goals is to bring Nazar out as a print publication at UT and throughout Austin.

Like most good ideas, Nazar was born from the need to fill a gap. The gap was a lack of a publication that catered to the 5,000 South Asians on campus, a community that makes up 10% of the UT population. We wanted to create a magazine that would not only be a representative voice of this community, but would also inform South Asians in detail of the events happening back at home.

This doesn’t just mean a compilation of facts of the major events – anyone, South Asian or otherwise, can get those – but reviews and opinions of them, especially from the perspective of a South Asian living overseas. Just as important will be the coverage of issues and events in the US that affect South Asians living here, be it immigration and foreign policy, the cultural divide, or an imminent performance by a South Asian artist in Austin.

Nazar is the first of its kind, and promises to be an excellent platform for writers, designers, and sales people, amongst others. The road to publishing won’t be easy, but it will be an exciting ride, and we’re thrilled to be part of UT history in the making. [Link]

You got to support dedicated young bloggers. Where is my UMich at? If you know of any similar South Asian American group blogs based out of a university community then please send a tip my way.

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“Slumdog” IT Workers: Rush’s Outsourcing Limbomb

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On our shiny new news tab, someone posted a link to a Rush Limbaugh transcript, where Rushbo uses “slumdog” as something akin to an ethnic slur:

CALLER: Perseverance. America, you have to persevere, you have to be patient. … What really irks me is with corporate America, people saying, “Rush, can I get my job back? Are you going to be able to get my job back from something that’s been outsourced and the corporations are going all over, out of the country.” Why don’t these people invest in America, invest in corporate America, become stockholders. The CEOs and the boards of directors pay lip service to their shareholders. Invest in America and invest in yourself by investing in corporate America. Wouldn’t that help?

RUSH: It might. No question about it. But the whole thing about outsourcing, even President Obama slipped up. I love this, ’cause the teleprompter, that teleprompter sometimes sneaks things in there that are not in Obama’s best interests to say, but the teleprompter nevertheless makes him say them. Obama got a call during his virtual town meeting about outsourcing jobs, he said, “Look, those jobs aren’t coming back.” There’s a reason they aren’t coming back. They’re outsourced for a reason, an economic reason, and they’re not coming back. If you’re sitting out waiting for a job that’s now being done by a slumdog in India, and you’re waiting for that job to be canceled, for the slumdog to be thrown out of work, and you to get the job, it ain’t going to happen. It’s not the way economics works. Even Obama’s teleprompter got him to admit that. (link)

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Oblique Brown’s Dust Storm

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dust_album cover.jpgChee Malabar is hitting the internet airwaves once again. One half of the duo Himalayan Project, last month, Chee dropped a solo EP project under the name Oblique Brown. Titled Dust, the four song EP takes us on a lyrical dust storm where hip hop is a religion, words are an ode to life, and poetry slams with beats.

I met up with Chee at a coffee shop in downtown Los Angeles to ask him some questions about his new EP, his life as an artist, and his work bringing poetry to incarcerated youth. As can only be expected with the Murphy’s Law in my life, when we walked out to Chee’s car after the interview, we saw that it had been towed – for a movie shoot going on in the street. So, please, read the interview and after you are done go to Itunes or CD Baby and download Oblique Brown’s Dust today. And hopefully, all will be forgiven.

Taz: When did you first fall in love with hip-hop?

Chee: Is that from the movie Brown Sugar? Uh, okay… Basically, I moved to my neighborhood in San Francisco when I was twelve and all the kids in my neighborhood listened to hip hop. I fell in love with it in the sense that it was so different than anything I’d ever heard before. But I didn’t really understand what I was listening to back then. I liked the beat. I could nod my head. And the kids seemed to like it and I knew I should like it. That’s how it started…I was listening to Ice Cube, Paris, NWA…You start making connections to what they were saying and you start looking around and saying, “Oh wait, what they are saying is kind of important because things are kinda fucked up.” I would say that is the first time I fell in love with hip hop.

T: Was there an album that really influenced you?

C: I loved the Paris album, Sleeping with the Enemy with the song Bush Killer. I just loved that album. And all the NWA stuff and Ice Cube’s AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted and Predator…For me it was like playing catch up, I had missed all the hip-hop history… I remember the kids at school they‘d give me a tape, and I’d ask who’s this what’s that. For them it was something that had past but for me it was something brand new. I‘d go up to friends and say, “Have you heard this?” They‘d say”…uh, yeah. it‘s four years old.”

T: When did you start performing?

C: I started writing a couple of years after that, but I kept it to myself. Talking over a beat, you know. Not seriously until high school. Ray, who’s in Himalayan Project with me, he and I would make little tapes. Ray and I have known each other since sixth grade but we didn’t start really connecting until high school …we started talking about music… and we’d make a mix tape battling each other. I’d make a tape, and I’d clown on him, and I’d give it to him. And he’d respond. So that’s how we started…

I remember that we pressed up a bunch of tape, and we’d try to sell it. We went to somewhere in the Haight where they used to sell mixed tapes. We went to the guy with this cheesy ass cover of us on the tape. Like an actual cover. Photocopied and made with a cheesy tape cassette. The guy was super nice about it. He said, “Yeah, I’ll listen to it. If I like it you guys can stop by and drop more tapes off.”

T: Did he like it?

C: I have no idea. I dunno. We were too embarrassed to go back and find out. We were like kids, pretty much. But that’s pretty much how we started.

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In My Gully, Rupees Beat the Dollar…

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In the ten plus years since Asian influenced electronica started making the musical rounds, the sound has gone in various directions. From the pulsating Indian classical-oriented tabla and bass to bollywood dub step, the music has evolved and morphed with other styles of contemporary and popular music. A prime example of this evolution can be found in Hello Hello, the most recent studio album put out by the New Delhi-based duo of Tapan Raj and Gaurav Raina, collectively known as the Midival Punditz. Hello, released on Six Degrees Records, sees the evolution of Punditz’s engaging electro-desi sound into new directions I haven’t see the Punditz delve into in past albums. Don’t worry though, it’s mostly a good thing!

The album’s opener, Electric Universe, is a strong tune, that marries a bansuri based melody with the now very-trendy vocoder lyrics and an up-tempo western dance groove. Universe is a good start to a very good album, and serves as a nice introduction of the diverging sounds to come. The last track is an acoustic version of Universe, except with unadulterated vocals and acoustic guitar by fellow Asian-massivist Karsh Kale. In fact, Kale’s influence on the album is heavily felt, with credits on more than five of the album’s 11 tracks.

With Hello, it’s clear that the Punditz haven’t forgotten where they came from, or the type of music that has led them to be called “the sound of 21st century India.” The album has the raga and folk influence I have come to expect and love from the Punditz, but also a classic rock and pop influence that one might hear in the nightclubs of Delhi, Bangalore, or Bombay.

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The perfect blend of East and West

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On my way to the East Village last night, I stopped by a store which is arguably ground zero for shameless Orientalism in NYC, East-West books.

This store is exactly as over the top and ridiculous as the name suggests. It’s the kind of place where one (White) salesman was dressed in a very handsome lime colored Chinese silk jacket while another (white again) had 3 sandalwood malas on one arm, several around his neck, and at least one on the other arm. Their list of books and other offerings is very left coast, the sort of thing I encountered regularly when I lived in the Bay Arya, but rarely see in skeptical, ironic NYC.

Soon after I entered, in the CD rack, I found Jaya Lakshmi’s “Jewel of Hari.” I love the blurb that introduces the album: Yoga! Mantras! Flamenco! Veils! It’s nearly a perfect listing of New Age clichés, it has everything except Zen, Native Americans and gnostic wisdom.

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What’s In A Name?

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Too hard to find your name on the voting rolls? Do ‘American’ poll workers have a difficult time understanding how to spell your ethnic name? Time to change that name – or so Rep. Betty Brown suggests…

A North Texas legislator during House testimony on voter identification legislation said Asian-descent voters should adopt names that are “easier for Americans to deal with.” The exchange occurred late Tuesday as the House Elections Committee heard testimony from Ramey Ko, a representative of the Organization of Chinese Americans.

“Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?” Brown said.

Brown later told Ko: “Can’t you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to deal with?” [chron]

Ohnoshedin’t. She’s not even suggesting that people take on easier to pronounce nicknames, but legally changing names to make it easier for immigrant Americans to have access to voting. For realz?

Watch Ramey Ko duke it out with Ms. Brown in the above video. Continue reading →