{"id":2240,"date":"2005-09-19T02:13:47","date_gmt":"2005-09-19T07:13:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com?p=2240"},"modified":"2005-09-20T11:06:49","modified_gmt":"2005-09-20T16:06:49","slug":"t_minus_five","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2005\/09\/19\/t_minus_five\/","title":{"rendered":"T minus five"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"MTV Desi<\/a> has posted a dilatory yet strangely hypnotic video clip of their launch<\/a>. The fetching Niharika Desai<\/a> speaks a single line in an Amrikan accent.<\/p>\n\n

0:04: Hard Kaur raps ‘Glassy<\/a>‘
1:07: Psychedelic Bollywood tabla clip (can you ID the movie?)
2:53: Talvin Singh beat-boxes a tabla tal
3:00: Skinny uncle type says, ‘the boogie-voogie blaster’
3:04: Niharika yells, ‘We’re live!’
3:05: Eerie, screaming glasses man
3:11: A clip from Indian Cowboy<\/a>,<\/em> I think
3:31: Running sadhu, naked and in ashes
4:01: Bhangra troupe dances under the Williamsburg Bridge<\/a> to the MTV theme (reverse fusion, cheeky!)
4:31: Tim Kash says, ‘Our first video of the night’
4:35: Clip of Karmacy’s<\/a> ‘Blood Brothers’
4:39: M.I.A. massacres the word ‘desi’ (says ‘dessy’ instead of ‘they-see’)<\/p>\n\n

Interspersed are some random Green Day and Madonna filler clips.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/a>As Abhi posted<\/a> earlier, you can also watch Rabbi’s ‘Bulla Ki Jana’ video<\/a>. It has a beautiful, washed-out humanist palette and wiggly English supertitles in black marker on clear plastic.<\/p>\n\n

The images would be postcard-trite in a Red Cross ad. But with the handsome Sufi Sikh dressed all in white, the track comes across as spiritual, a folk bhajan with a bass track and synth. It feels less snarky than earnest, less ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ (Buggles) than ‘Fragile’ (Sting).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The video begins with sunrise and ends at sunset; it’s a tour of Indian landmarks (Gateway of India; Marine Drive; Churchgate Station; Harimandir Sahib; Hawa Mahal; the giant Shiva statue<\/a> in Murdeshwar, Karnataka; Khajuraho; the Charminar<\/a> in Hyderabad — thanks, Ashvin<\/a>; painted elephants in Rajasthan; a desert plant that evokes The Joshua Tree; <\/em>an arrack<\/a> shop for authenticity ) and places of worship (a temple tank, a gurdwara, qawwals in a masjid). The lyrics (‘I know not who I am’) are a subtle reference to second-gen culture clash. This is pop manipulativeness with a light touch — kudos to the director.<\/p>\n\n

If any of the links don’t work for you, just go to the main video page<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

Previous posts: un<\/a>, deux<\/a>, trois<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MTV Desi has posted a dilatory yet strangely hypnotic video clip of their launch. The fetching Niharika Desai speaks a single line in an Amrikan accent. 0:04: Hard Kaur raps ‘Glassy‘1:07: Psychedelic Bollywood tabla clip (can you ID the movie?)2:53: … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"-1","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2240"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2240\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}