{"id":3369,"date":"2006-05-12T07:36:26","date_gmt":"2006-05-12T12:36:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com?p=3369"},"modified":"2006-05-12T13:47:11","modified_gmt":"2006-05-12T18:47:11","slug":"whats_the_samac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2006\/05\/12\/whats_the_samac\/","title":{"rendered":"What&#8217;s the samachar, yo?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My buddy <a href=\"http:\/\/pardonmyhindi.com\/samachar\/02\/john-jane\/\">Chiraag<\/a> of <a title=\"The peacock (10\/25\/2005)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.pardonmyhindi.com\">Pardon My Hindi<\/a> has just posted a kick-ass <a href=\"http:\/\/pardonmyhindi.com\/samachar\/02\/\">second issue of <em>Samachar<\/em><\/a>, a superpremium, arty site which is the H\u00c3\u00a4agen-Dasz of 2nd gen desi mags:<\/p>\n\n<ul style=\"margin-right: 0px\">\n<li>A scandalous, <a href=\"http:\/\/pardonmyhindi.com\/samachar\/02\/phunk\/\">side-by-side audio comparison<\/a> of &#8216;Don&#8217;t Phunk With My Heart,&#8217; a Black Eyed Peas Grammy winner, with <a title=\"Everyone recycles (updated) (6\/8\/2005)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sepiamutiny.com\/sepia\/archives\/001695.html\">the song it plagiarized<\/a>, &#8216;Ae Nau Jawan Sab Kuchh Yahan&#8217; from <em>Apradh.<\/em> The catchy melody is a shameless copy. <a href=\"http:\/\/pardonmyhindi.com\/samachar\/02\/phunk\/\">Listen for yourself<\/a>.<br \/><br \/>It&#8217;s not a sample, it&#8217;s the entire melodic backbone of the song, almost entirely unchanged. Royalties? Nope. Americans really <em>are<\/em> learning from Bollywood.<br \/><br \/>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/pardonmyhindi.com\/samachar\/02\/dosa\/\">A video clip of NYU dosa man<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sepiamutiny.com\/sepia\/archives\/000502.html\">Thiru Kumar<\/a> composing his mirch<em>-e-<\/em>frisbees while wearing a jacket with a big, LTTE-esque airbrushed tiger on the back \n<table style=\"border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; margin-top: 10px; float: right; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 20px; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0\">\n<tr style=\"padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px\">\n<td style=\"padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px\"><a href=\"http:\/\/pardonmyhindi.com\/samachar\/02\/dosa\/\"><img class=picture height=300 src=\"http:\/\/www.sepiamutiny.com\/sepia\/images\/ThiruKumar_new_changed.JPG\" width=290 border=0><\/a><\/td><\/tr>\n<tr style=\"padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px\">\n<td class=caption style=\"padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; width: 290px; padding-top: 0px\">\n<p class=caption-text style=\"font-size: 80%; margin: 3px 5px; line-height: 110%\">Out-of-Office Tiger<\/p><\/td><\/tr><\/table>. Yes, he listens to <a title=\"Wah, po' Maya (9\/16\/2005)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sepiamutiny.com\/sepia\/archives\/002220.html\">M.I.A.<\/a><br \/><br \/>\n<li>A stylish trailer for <a href=\"http:\/\/pardonmyhindi.com\/samachar\/02\/john-jane\/\">call center documentary <em>John and Jane<\/em><\/a><em>:<\/em> \n<blockquote>The most startling character is the re-named Naomi, a Gujurati girl who bleaches her skin and hair and speaks with an American accent even outside working hours. [<a href=\"http:\/\/pardonmyhindi.com\/samachar\/02\/john-jane\/\">Link<\/a>]<\/blockquote>\n<li>A self-promotional <a href=\"http:\/\/pardonmyhindi.com\/samachar\/02\/pmh-sf\/\">photo essay of PMH stickers<\/a> pasted throughout San Francisco by friends of the artist<\/li><\/ul>\n\n<p>I really love this site&#8217;s aesthetic. The photos are ginormous and animated in a flipbook format. Raag loves his fabric textures and <a title=\"Hipsterville (9\/16\/2005)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.vij.com\/archive\/hipsterville.html\">Billyburg<\/a> blue-on-brown palette. The Meena Kumari (?) sticker still looks like she&#8217;s post-orgasmic. He&#8217;s got some new shirts big-upping &#8217;70s Bollycomposer duo Anand-Kalyan (licensing issues?), who composed the song the Peas lifted.<\/p>\n\n<!--more-->\n\n<p>IMO this biz plan is brilliant. By pairing Anand-Kalyan audio clips with related tees, Raag educates Bollyhip clotheshorses in a much more engaging way than the tiny back story on a Ben &#038; Jerry&#8217;s.<\/p>\n\n<p>Here are a few unsolicited suggestions:<\/p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>It&#8217;s crying out for a comments feature \n<li>The concept, design and story ideas are great, but the writing needs more of an edge \n<li>More, please! The site looks like a labor of love with eons invested. What <a href=\"http:\/\/pardonmyhindi.com\/contact\/\">Raag<\/a> needs is some people to help with the gorgeousness (hint, hint).<\/li><\/ul>\n\n<p>Related posts: <a title=\"Everyone recycles (updated) (6\/8\/2005)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sepiamutiny.com\/sepia\/archives\/001695.html\">Everyone recycles<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sepiamutiny.com\/sepia\/archives\/000502.html\">Tiffinwalla in New York<\/a>, <a title=\"The peacock (10\/25\/2005)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sepiamutiny.com\/sepia\/archives\/002413.html\">The peacock<\/a>, <a title=\"The tao of Manschot (10\/18\/2005)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sepiamutiny.com\/sepia\/archives\/002378.html\">The tao of Manschot<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My buddy Chiraag of Pardon My Hindi has just posted a kick-ass second issue of Samachar, a superpremium, arty site which is the H\u00c3\u00a4agen-Dasz of 2nd gen desi mags: A scandalous, side-by-side audio comparison of &#8216;Don&#8217;t Phunk With My Heart,&#8217; &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2006\/05\/12\/whats_the_samac\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3369"}],"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=3369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3369\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}