Two militants from Babbar Khalsa have been arrested and charged with the Jo Bole So Nihaal film bombings. Two others are still being sought:

… the Delhi Police today arrested two activists of the Babbar Khalsa militant outfit allegedly responsible for the crime and claimed to have recovered one kg RDX, Rs 2.94 lakh cash and two kgs of gold… [Outlook India]

The extremist group, previously thought to be nearly defunct, was accused of planning the Air India bombing in 1985 and assassinating Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh with a suicide bomber in 1995. The U.S. added Babbar Khalsa to its list of terrorist groups only last year:

Many leaders of the Babbar Khalsa, who are on India’s most-wanted list, are now based in Pakistan… [NDTV]

The militants had been in constant touch with Wadhwa Singh, the Pakistan-based chief of Babbar Khalsa International… [Outlook India]

The suspects seem to have learned from Al Qaeda tactics. They allegedly used plastic explosives to evade metal detectors and cavities in running shoes to smuggle the easily-molded explosives. Like the 9/11 hijackers, they allegedly plotted in a country away from the target, one perceived to have lax security. And there’s the ubiquitous Pakistan connection:

Balvinder and Jaspal had travelled to Bangkok on April 22 and met one Shahid to discuss about terrorist activities to be carried out. Though it was not yet clear which group Shahid was affiliated with, several militant groups operating in Jammu and Kashmir had been using Bangkok as a base lately. [Outlook India]

Police Commissioner K K Paul said they smuggled in the two detonators, two timers and wires in their underwear while the plastic explosives were carried in sports shoes. The explosives, possibly RDX, was in the form of four sheets wrapped in polythene which were kept in sports shoes which they had bought specifically for the operation…

On the day of the attack… the foursome came to the Liberty cinema hall in two cars, a Tata Sierra and a Hyundai Santro… The Sierra had special cavities to hide the explosives… Jaspal, Balvinder and Vikas entered Liberty while Jagannath waited outside. Jaspal prepared the bomb inside the toilet and gave it to Balvinder and Vikas who placed it under a seat in the front stall. Jaspal left the hall before the interval and the other two just afterwards. All four then went to Satyam where Jaspal and Jagannath went inside and placed the bomb in the toilet before exiting, Paul said. [Outlook India]

From the verdant paradise of my ancestors comes a story that has my head ringing with "You put your WEED in it!"-- apparently, a needless slaughter of innocent, Idukki-dwelling Cannabis plants took place in Kerala...I ask you, where's the outrage? ;) Oh, and what next?

The Kerala government will convert part of an 8,000-acre forest that used to be dense with cannabis plants into a tourist adventure and herbal park.

"Apart from the adventure park, we propose to convert the place into a herbal park as several species of herbal plants are growing in the area," Forest Minister T. Radhakrishnan told reporters here Tuesday.

What's an herbal park...without HERB? Sheesh.

If I had to guess, I would speculate that the park will be full of Karriveppilei, that sacred, venerated Malayalee houseplant that my mom would save from a burning building before any thought of me, my sister or my dog.

About 114,000 cannabis plants were destroyed.

Omg, they killed cannabis. Those bastards. ;) Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go veg to more Comedy Central, lest I run out of cute ways to blog things. :D

Monkey got props for his actions, too. (Thanks, bl00t!) A simian devotee of Shiva showed up bright and early in Orissa the other day:

Said Aniruddha Behera, a village resident: "The monkey folded his hands, observed silence, put vermilion on his forehead and also took the prasad from the devotees."

"When we saw the monkey joining us we were surprised. We did not try to drive it out and it continued praying for nearly an hour amid hundreds of devotees," Behera told IANS.

Villagers from Junia, Balasore district placed a garland on the spiritual simian before he left for a forest. Apparently the monkey was not familiar to those who witnessed the surprising scene, which went down on the day that a symbol for Shiva was being "formally inaugurat(ed)".

"We have not seen any monkey around for the last two years. This is a miracle for us," Behera said.

Over forty years ago, my mom's family in Kerala had a parrot that famously prayed with everyone every day; in fact, if "evening prayers" didn't commence exactly on time, the much-loved bird would chide my heathen mother and sonorously begin them for her. Yeah, I love stories like this.

Just who is Rambo? From Wikipedia:

The first movie begins with the titular character - John Rambo, played by Sylvester Stallone - returning from the Vietnam War and searching for an old Army buddy. After discovering that his friend had died of cancer, and being escorted to the town limits by the local sheriff Will Teasle (Brian Dennehy) who “doesn’t like his type”, Rambo defiantly walks back into town. Sheriff Teasle arrests Rambo, and brings him to the station where he can be “cleaned up”. During a forced shower with firehose, where he is beaten, Rambo has a wartime flashback of his experience as a POW in Vietnam. Temporarily losing touch with reality, Rambo escapes from prison and hides in the local mountains.

So basically we have a guy with a lot of guns who has lost touch with reality and fled to the mountains (see here for example). Hmmm, where to send him next? Well why not have him shoot some Muslim terrorists, and film it partly in India? From Rediff.com (tip from Punjabi Boy):

The shooting for Rambo IV, also titled Holy Wars, is scheduled to begin in Sofia, Bulgaria, in January 2006.

Filming also scheduled in the US and — you better believe it — India!

…an early draft of Holy Wars, freely viewable online, revolves around a different race-situation, one which Stallone has been alluding to ever since 9/11 happened.

John Rambo, a committed family man, is an environmentalist working at the UN headquarters in New York. Suddenly, the UN HQ is besieged by Islamic terrorists. The sadistic fundamentalists are holding the world to ransom. There isn’t a better man to go after the bad guys than Rambo, but the tale sees a twist because he knows his Afghani-adopted son is part of the terrorist squad.

What the F%ck! The John Rambo I have grown to love could never be a “family man” and an environmentalist working at that sissy U.N. What is this crap? But it gets worse. Who will play Rambo’s adopted Afghani son if the filmmakers have their way? I’ll give you a hint. He has six fingers.

Rambo’s Afghani-American stepson (or his Afghani-adopted son, going by the draft we read) is slated to be played by — hold your breath — Hrithik Roshan!

The treatment note describes the character as similar to Altaf in Mission Kashmir, and calls him ‘in many ways, the Rambo for the twenty-first century.’

Talking about Hrithik, it mentions a resemblance between him and Stallone himself, and talks about how the young Indian stud currently has all the staying power needed to make the first truly big crossover Indian-American film.

Taking things into perspective, it’s important to remember than nothing has been signed yet — there have been no official announcements regarding the cast of the film, with the obvious exception of the inevitable leading man, Sly himself.

It always begins like this. The outbreak starts in one city or culture and slowly spreads. The youth are often the first to be infected. It builds slowly at first and then before you know it even you neighbors are infected. From MSN.com (tip from Amit):

Johannesburg— They sing songs from “Sholay” and “Kal Ho Na Ho”, they dance, they emote, complete with the glitzy costumes so typical of Bollywood stage shows. But they are not Indian!

In fact, the team comprising a pair of Chinese American twins, one girl from Italy and two of French-German stock never fails to amaze audiences with its Bollywood-inspired performances.

And now twins Michael and Martin McNally; sisters Celeste and Joanna Richard, who are half German and half French; and Italian Victoria Satanassi are here.

They first met after becoming volunteers with the charity Action in Focus, which hosts medical camps and other social services to the needy in the East African country of Kenya.

“We wanted to help raise funds in whatever way we could, and we started with performances in pop. But then the Indian community in Kenya inspired us to look at Bollywood, which became a real hit.

I really have mixed emotions about this. Before, when I met a girl I was into, I used to take her to a nearby park and “test her out.” Could she run around the trees fast enough that it would be at least a minor effort for me to catch her? Could she sing a song in a voice strangely not her own? Now when I go to the park I feel like I am increasingly going to be surrounded by couples of other cultures doing the same thing. I am not sure if I can handle that type of change.

The group admits that during tours of Canada, Dubai, Britain, Kenya and even India the audiences always react with surprise at seeing an international group of white performers doing Bollywood items.

“The reaction in India was particularly amazing,” said Michael.

“We met some people from the film industry there and were even offered a part in movies. But to be honest, we can make more money for the charity by performing as we do than in the time it would take for involvement in a Bollywood production.”

Perhaps it is because Time Magazine put one of his movies in its Top 100, or perhaps it is because his films are just plain good. Regardless, I am pleased to type that The Smithsonian Institution will be screening 5 of Guru Dutt's works, each newly restored by the National Film Archive of India including Pyaasa, which was included in Time's list. I liked Pyaasa, but I liked Kagaz Ke Phool and Chaudvi Ka Chand more. All three of these films will be screened, in addition to Mr. and Mrs. 55 and Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam. I haven't seen either of the last two, but its Guru Dutt, so it should be good.

If I was in DC, I would be most looking forward to Chaudvi Ka Chand. Think Moh'd Rafi and his amazing voice swoon, "Chaudvin Ka Chand Ho, Ya Aaftaab Ho...". But I digress.

The movies will be screened throughout June and the schedule is as follows: Mr. and Mrs. 55, Sunday, June 5, 2 pm. Meyer Auditorium

Pyaasa, Friday, June 17, 7 pm. Meyer Auditorium

Chaudhvin Ka Chand, Sunday, June 19, 2 pm. Meyer Auditorium

Kaagaz Ke Phool, Friday, June 24, 7 pm. Meyer Auditorium

Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam, Sunday, June 26, 2 pm. Meyer Auditorium

Imagine, if you will, being a desi kid with a passion for the claviers and chords of Western classical. You’d be sick of hearing, ‘Why can’t you be like Mr. Malhotra’s son, the doctor,’ for the last 20 years. Tired of uncles asking why you shave your head, where you disappear to all summer, why you’re never free on weekends. Isn’t it risky, a pauper’s life? Could you support a dutiful wife? I don’t know, beta, this whole thing is so phoren.

Imagine that in your 15-minute Warhol, you could perform in the most storied hall in America, painting away every doubt-hound dating back to high school. Your hands would throw auditory pottery, now throbbing delicately like gills, now stabbing angrily at imaginary boxers. Fifty pairs of eyes would look to your space needle for reassurance, tempo, tone. Just you, a riser and your musical crew: o captain my captain, carpe musicum, and they’d respond. A forest of swaying toothpicks, egg slicers and split-tongued shoots would churn buttery tones into a towering aural chasm.

On that day, you could be forgiven for feeling like Salieri even if you sounded like Mozart. So you’ll understand why I’m so proud to share with you my cousin Ankush Bahl’s Carnegie Hall debut. On Sunday, he conducted Brahms’ Tragic Overture for the best youth symphony in America. He did it without sheet music, a zipless conduct.

At 28, Ankush resembles bull-shouldered, shaven-headed entertainers from Yul Brynner to Ben Kingsley. The NYT reviews the performance:

… the Youth Symphony also promotes young professional musicians in the early stages of their careers. One example is Ankush Kumar Bahl, the group’s assistant conductor, who made his Carnegie debut leading an energetic reading of the Brahms overture with clear authority and enthusiasm…

Have camera, but where to travel?: Each year insurance broker Aon releases a map that highlights the risks of filming in every country on the planet (via Filmmaker Magazine). Filmmakers use it to avoid hotspots that could derail production, while reality television producers no doubt use it to locate trouble-ready destinations. This may explain why such programs are increasing their visits to India, which ranks rather poorly in the survey.

Kleenex shortage on the set: There’s a new desi independent film entitled “Anokha.” Based on the trailer, it appears to be about crying, and nothing but crying.

Letter arranging contest: The 78th annual Scripps National Spelling Bee is June 1-2. Catch all the dorky goodness live when ESPN broadcasts the event on Thursday at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. EST. The cable network’s print ad is to the right.

Obligatory M.I.A. update: Here’s a torrent of her passing through the cone zone (Quicktime, 11 MB, 4 mins.). Requires a BitTorrent downloader — PC, Mac.

Revenge of the rack: Shilpa Shetty versus Mallika Sherawat. Discuss.

Drats. After years of dominating the Spelling Bee, Indian American kids attempted to conquer the globe by claiming the top spot at the National Geographic Bee. Victory was not to be but a hearty congratulations goes to fourteen-year-old Karan Takhar from Rhode Island who claimed second place and will rise to the throne if the first place winner gets his knee clubbed in a freak accident or something. From NationalGeographic.com:

The National Geographic Bee champion for 2005 is Nathan Cornelius of Minnesota.

The homeschooled 13-year-old from Cottonwood, in the southwestern part of the state, edged out Rhode Island’s Karan Takhar, a 14-year-old eighth grader at the Gordon School in East Providence, in a tense competition today at the National Geographic Society’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Samuel Brandt, 13, in eighth grade at Roosevelt Middle School in Eugene, Oregon, came in third.

All three boys are three-time winners of their respective state-level National Geographic Bee competitions.

The Hindustan Times reports on Karan:

The question that eventually foxed Karan but helped Nathan clinch the championship was: Name the dammed-up river that forms the artificial Lake Gatun in the Panama Canal system. The Answer: Chagres River.

Apart from Karan, two other Indian students, Bonny Jain and Tejas Raje, were among the 10 finalists in the competition, now in its 17th year.

Damn that Panama Canal system. IF ONLY we hadn’t given it back to the Panamanians when our lease ran out it would have been higher in our collective consciousness’ and Karan would have gotten that answer right. I hold that liberal President Carter responsible for this.

Now we know all about the (over)active Desi communities in SF, NYC, LA, DC, H-Town, the Big D, Chi-Town, and a few others. But what about the brothers & sisters -in-arms in the Dakota's? The Hindustan Times has a fun little article on this surprisingly active community -

Dakotas - comprising of two American States North and South Dakota - is at the bottom when it comes to Indian population.

Of nearly 17 lakh Indians in the United States, as per 2000 census, North Dakota has 822 Indians, while South Dakota has even less 611. They are scattered all throughout the area, while the concentration is big cities like Rapid City, Fargo and Grand Forks.

• Hindu Temple
  
• Cultural Association
  
• Library
  
• Cinema -

  Fargo, is probably the only place in both North and South Dakota where a cinema hall screens Hindi films at regular interval. People from various parts of North Dakota come to see the popular Hindi films.

• Indian Students Association @ the S. Dakota School of Mines

  Besides providing supportive and homely atmosphere for Indian students, the Club also celebrates Indian festivals with fervour and gaiety.

• and a Cricket Club

What could make any Indian proud is the performance of Venkataswamy Ramakrishnan in this Dakota land. Emeritus Professor of Civil Engineering at this mining school, State of South Dakota declared on Sunday, September 29, 2002, as Dr. Venkataswamy Ramakrishnan Day for his contributions to the state.

Toqueville would be proud. And I've marked my Calendar for next 9/29.

Sometimes it’s easier to accept torture by thinking, “oh they aren’t U.S. citizens so it doesn’t matter as much.” Human Rights Watch this week focused attention on the case of two Pakistani-American brothers who “disappeared” while in Pakistan. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports:

An international human rights watchdog has slammed the United States for allegedly allowing FBI and Pakistani intelligence officials to illegally detain and torture two brothers claiming to be U.S. citizens of Pakistani descent.

The two men say they were held for several months and harshly interrogated by Pakistani intelligence and U.S. FBI agents on suspicion of Islamic militant links. They claim they were later abandoned, blindfolded, on a street in the southern city of Karachi.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said Tuesday that Zain Afzal, 23, and Kashan Afzal, 25, were detained in a raid on their Karachi home on Aug. 13, 2004, and freed on April 22.

“It is outrageous that Pakistan abducts people from their homes in the middle of the night and tortures them in secret prisons to extract confessions,” said Human Rights Watch’s Asia director, Brad Adams.

“The United States should be condemning this, but instead it either directed this activity or turned a blind eye in the hopes of gaining information in the war on terror,” Adams said in a statement.

The Human Rights Watch website has more on the two:

When queried about the status of the brothers and the role of the FBI, the U.S. Consul in Karachi in March replied: “We are aware of the reports indicating two American citizens are missing, or ‘disappeared’ in Pakistan, and we are looking into them. Due to Privacy Act considerations, we are unable to provide additional information on these two individuals. The safety and security of Americans overseas is of paramount importance to us, and we continue to work both here and abroad to provide all possible assistance to our citizens. I refer you to the FBI for any information on their involvement.”

“While U.S. officials say the safety and security of Americans overseas is paramount, the U.S. government didn’t lift a finger to help the Afzal brothers until their cases were reported in the international press,” said Adams. “The U.S. knew exactly where the brothers were all along, while their family was scared stiff, not knowing whether they were dead or alive. This is profoundly wrong and should send a chill up the spine of every U.S. citizen living overseas.”

Unless you’re a physician who moonlights in a heavy metal band, the nickname “Dr. Death” should tell you that you’re doing a poor job of practicing medicine. Dr. Jayant Patel, a surgeon in the Australian state of Queensland, is not in a heavy metal band:

A doctor turned off a woman’s life support ventilator in an Australian hospital because the director of surgery, dubbed "Dr Death," wanted her bed to operate on another patient, an inquiry has heard. The government-sanctioned inquiry in the Australian state of Queensland is examining the deaths of 87 patients treated by Indian-trained Dr Jayant Patel. [Reuters/Yahoo!]

Promotions in the news (biz): The new editor of the Wall Street Journal’s European edition is desi (via SAJA). Raju Narisetti, who’s sporting an official Editor Goatee, has been with the WSJ for 11 years:

Raju Narisetti has been named editor of the Wall Street Journal Europe, moving up to the top job from managing editor - making him the first South Asian to run an edition of the Journal…

BBC reader-stud Riz Khan joins the control room for the Fox of the Middle East:

Riz Khan, former CNN and BBC anchor, joins Al-Jazeera as an anchor…

Tech geeks have long drooled over Berkeley grad Sumi Das’ gadget reviews. She’s now at CNN in DC:

Sumi Das has joined CNN Newsource’s Washington, D.C. bureau as a national correspondent. Previously, Das was a correspondent for MSNBC, where she covered the Scott Peterson trial in Modesto; and before that, she was host of “Fresh Gear” on TechTV.

Two film stars set aside their romantic rivalry over TMBWITW to carry the body of Sunil Dutt together. More photos of the funeral here.

Conventional wisdom says that NYC isn’t going to succeed in its bid to land the 2012 Olympic Games. The world hates Americans too much to award them such an honor. Therefore, our fine Parisian friends are the supposed frontrunners. All of a sudden the Frenchies have problems as well it seems. The Guardian reports:

Sikh leaders in Britain have written to all 117 International Olympic Committee members urging them not to vote for the favourites Paris when they meet to elect a host city to stage the 2012 games next month.

They claim that the controversial French law banning the Sikh dastar (turban) along with other religious articles of faith in schools is discriminatory and that Paris does not deserve to be awarded the Olympics.

“We publicly stated that, if the law in France was implemented to deny Sikh children the right to wear the turban, we would have little choice but to lobby against the Paris bid for 2012,” wrote the Sikh Federation of UK chairman Amrik Singh in a letter to each of the IOC members.

The New York Times today chimes in with its humorous headline, “Poll Finds Support for Paris Games in 2012 (Margin of Error, 100 Percent):”

On Sunday, French voters will participate in a referendum on whether to ratify a new European constitution. Polls indicate that they will reject the constitutional treaty, and Lamour said yesterday that the result would have no bearing on Paris’s Olympics bid. “A negative vote will not have any impact on our ability to organize the Games,” he said.

Opposition in France to the charter for the European Union seems based, to a large extent, on the fear of or the resistance to an expansion of Europe, and a potential loss of jobs. Such an opening up is precisely what the Olympic Games are: an opening up to the world. If a country is afraid to open up, how can it hold the Olympics?

“It’s a paradox,” Lamour said. “We want the Games, but we say no to Europe.”

Punjabi Boy points us to samples of chutney music from the Caribbean. Listen here.

It’s my first time listening in on this genre, and it’s wild. Sometimes it sets well-known Hindi songs (‘Jai Jai Shiv Shankar’) rendered in English to hyperkinetic calypso beats. Other times it’s creole music with snippets of Hindi lyrics and desi instruments. ‘Rum Shop’ by Dil-e-Nadan reminds me of Karmacy’s harmonium-infused rap track, ‘Euphoria.’ Other tracks remind me of the Bollywood hits redone as Broadway / West End songs in Bombay Dreams and Fourteen Songs, Two Weddings and a Funeral.

Rajendra Saywack dissertates:

Chutney was the name given to the pop/folk music of the East Indians that lived in the Caribbean region… In the summer of 1996, the dance hit, “Calcutta Woman” [by Sharlene Boodram] made its debut on the North American & European pop charts… its Wine Yuh Waist lyrics were constantly being sampled by American [DJs]…

… Sundar Popo lept to fame with the song “Nana & Nani.” The song, almost comical in nature described the affairs of a grandfather and grandmother, perhaps his own… Sundar’s lyrics of “Nana drinkin white rum and Nani drinkin wine,” were heard just about everywhere…

The traditional West Indian Calypso was being merged into a new form of music called Soca… Chutney music was caught up in this change, which would later evolve it into a new style called Indian Soca… it was almost solidly dominated by Afro West Indians during its early days. Songs such as Baron’s “Raja Rani”, Mighty Trini’s “Curry Tabanca,” Sugar Aloe’s “Roti & Dhalpourie” & Sparrow’s “Marajin” dominated the Indian Soca scene…

One of my fondest memories from childhood is of playing Monopoly and crushing my friends. I was a ruthless landlord. I’d shoot the dog with the revolver from Clue if he couldn’t pay. Now there is Desi-opoly, UK Desi-opoly to be precise. From the Yorkshire Post Today:

Called Monopoly UK “Desi” – the Asian term for homeland – it will feature Indian icons such as the Taj Mahal and Bollywood, as well as British streets famous for Asian culture, such as London’s Brick Lane and Manchester’s Wilmslow Road.

The traditional counters of top hat, dog, racing car and boot are to be replaced with three-wheeled scooters, tigers, cricket bats and Indian sweets.

Creator Gurdip Ahluwalia, who came up with the idea while working for games manufacturer Hasbro, is still seeking street names and landmarks to replace Mayfair, Park Lane and Old Kent Road.

One of the playing pieces is an Indian sweet? Somehow I can’t picture demanding money from a gulab jamun. Then again I could never understand the purpose of the iron in regular Monopoly. After “Punjabi Boy” (the frequent Brit commenter on SM)plays this we’ll get a full report.

Earlier this week Vinod pointed to a StrategyPage item that he referred to as “a minor bombshell.” The bombshell in question was that “American agents have been interrogating terrorism suspects held in Pakistani jails. This cooperation has been kept ‘secret’ because so many Pakistanis find it distasteful.” Yeah, but everyone suspected this, even though he was correct in labeling it a bombshell. Well, if you think that was provocative then what about this one? Al-Jazeerah reports:

The huge haul of sophisticated arms and ammunition worth 10 million rupees from a container at the Jawaharlal Nehru Port in New Bombay, last Saturday by Bombay police and Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), has led to the US taking a serious view of the situation and also a possible joining of forces by deploying security officials at the port.

The US is wary of the modus operandi of the shipment of arms, suspected for use in terror activities, and will now deploy its security official at this largest port of India. They also want the port to join the list of 30 other worldwide ports covered under the Container Security Initiative (CSI). A top police official said that the Jawaharlal Nehru port ranks among one of the top ten ports from were maximum containers are shipped to the United States.

U.S. agents on Indian soil, doing policing work? Ooooh, if it happens then the Indian nationalists are so going to be pissed when they find out they have something in common with Pakistan.

The deployment of the US security personnel…would result in rapid cargo clearances, as the procedures would be in line with US government requirements.

Meanwhile Indian intelligence agencies and customs authorities have strongly objected to permission being granted to US Customs and Border Patrol personnel being posted at Indian port.

Lester Gesteland quotes an Asian Media Watchdog email saying the Jersey Guys will apologize on air:

… 101.5FM agreed in writing to the following.

• Issue an on air, formal & blanket apology by the “Jersey Guys,”
• Invite Jun Choi (the KoreanAm candidate who was attacked) to be a guest by “Jersey Guys…”

… Comcast and Verizon agreed to suspend their radio ads…. “Kick The Jersey Guys Off The Air!” collected the largest amount of signatures in the shortest amount of time, even more so than our last major campaign, Hot 97…

Gesteland, who’s got three hapa kids, says:

This evening my wife was listening to the infamous Carton & Rossi show when she heard Jun Choi being interviewed…

Choi is running for mayor of the desi haven of Edison, NJ. Now that’s consumer power. Well done.

Update: Carton apologized, and Choi raked him on air, telling him why his comments were offensive. Listen here: part 1, part 2

We've been accused of a lack of lowe for Guyana, so I thought I'd point out that serendipitously enough, today is Guyanese Independence Day. Wikipedia says so on its main page, under selected Anniversaries. By the by, did you know that Guyana is half desi?

the three major groups are the (East) Indians or Indo-Guyanese (50%) who have remained predominantly rural, the Africans or Afro-Guyanese (36%) who constitute the majority urban population, and the Amerindians (7%) who live in the country's interior...

Christianity (50%), Hinduism (35%), and Islam (10%) are the dominant religions in Guyana, with the latter two concentrated in the Indo-Guyanese community.

Word. SM is down with ALL brown, y'hear? :)

Separatists in Manipur shot a man in the knees because he violated their ban on chewing zarda:

Arun Thakur is battling amputation at an Imphal hospital after he was shot at close range on his legs by suspected separatists on Wednesday. One of the assailants reportedly shouted at the barber from Bihar, who has made Imphal his home: “You are punished for chewing paan.” The attack comes a day after the outlawed separatist Revolutionary People’s Front (RPF) imposed a ban on the sale and consumption of chewing tobacco products in Manipur…

Tobacco products locally known as khaini and zarda are a common form of addiction among many Indians, including a vast majority in Manipur… “The ban is meant to counter India’s evil designs of getting the younger generation hooked to such dangerous substances,” an RPF statement said.

Encouraged by the rebels, frustrated desi readers worldwide have threatened to ‘bust a cap in Random House’s ass’ if they publish one more book with mehndi on the cover.

The abnormally chubby baby about whom Apul posted did not survive his encounter with an Indian hospital:

Eleven-month-old baby Lokman Hakim, who weighed over 20 kgs, choked to death at SSKM Hospital on Sunday…

Lokman’s mother Ganera Bibi was feeding him mashed boiled rice on Sunday afternoon… But he started getting hiccups soon after his meal. Doctors suspect the baby had “overeaten” and food particles had got stuck in his trachea due to the lack of muscular co-ordination.

“I don’t know what happened. My son had never been given rice before. We brought him all the way from Murshidabad for treatment, and now he is no more,” said the shocked mother.

Beer, thongs, bikinis, toilet seats, sandals and now shoes: it seems the entire inventory of your local Wal-Mart ends up stenciled with Hindu art at some point. Emboldened by his success, the activist who got a brewery to drop its Ganesh beer is now opposing women’s shoes in France displaying an image of Rama:

A pair of women’s shoes allegedly showing Lord Rama made by French shoemaker Minelli has angered a pro-Hindu website, which has urged supporters to begin a letter-writing campaign to the shoemaker protesting against the product…

Expatriate attorney Brij Mohan Dhir has supported the bid, and is himself mobilizing opinion to protest production and marketing of the shoe… The San Francisco-based activist has circulated a copy of the letter widely on the Internet. If Minelli doesn’t back down, he is considering filing a complaint in the European Court of Human Rights…

Dhir’s joined forces with Hindu Human Rights, which complains that Meera Syal disses Hindus:

The BBC has made it to the top of the complaints charts with their new entry straight in at number one: Meera Syal’s much vaunted “Life Isn’t All Ha Ha Hee Hee” once again shows their inability to provide a positive portrayal of Hindus in Britain. Containing a series of cheap and insulting digs at Hindus, this programme continues the tradition of the Western media’s denigration of Hinduism and Hindu culture.

HHR needs to get in line, because Syal is an equal-opportunity humorist. Her Bhaji on the Beach screenplay, oft-maligned for ‘bashing men,’ is a Girls’ Night Out by definition.

Previous posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Bangladeshi-American rocker Arafat Kazi says the Dhaka rock scene is incestuous (via Tales from the Subcontinent):

… if you have one death metal band in Dhaka, there will be five death metal bands in Dhaka a year from now simply from osmosis… Elephant Road is a street which has three stores which had all kinds of LPs and later on CDs which they would copy onto cassette for you for a fee. This is how we ALL got our music until like 1999 or 2000. No CDs till then either… you had a band called The Attempted Band (featuring yours truly among others) which had the hottest girl in town and an enormous fat fuck who knows EVERYBODY in Dhaka city. All the bands that we knew clustered around us because we were doing shows, and eventually they started kicking ass as well. This could NOT have happened in India, where if you have a band in say Gujrat, there’s no fucking way it’s going to get to Cochin…

A big part of why you don’t see Paki or Indian bands doing rock music is because they both have HUGE cinema song industries (esp India). Why the fuck would Channel V show a rock band which nobody cares about when they can just as easily show a garam masala lust-laden video?

He also does a hilarious, purposely desi-accented homage to Wu-Tang Clan’s ‘Shame on a N*’ which reminds me of ’Drop It Like a FOB.’ Listen and weep.

Kazi’s a member of a rock band called the Watson Brothers:

Farhan happens to have that wonderfully rare quality in a Bangladeshi bassist— he’s had sex…

The Pacific News service features an essay by Sandip Roy and his feelings about the soon-to-be-over Asian Pacific American Heritage month:

Oops, I did it again. May is almost over and I forgot to feel special. It’s Asian Pacific American Heritage month, and I have nothing to show for it. I didn’t learn to wear a kimono or cook pad thai or read Amy Tan.

Public television and libraries are just bursting with Chinese memoirs and Filipino writers and Japanese origami demonstrations. Growing up in Calcutta, I was just Calcuttan. But with every boarding pass I received on my way to the United States, my identity ballooned — Calcuttan, Indian, South Asian and, finally, Asian. Now I get a whole month, and I’m at a loss as to what to do with it.

Asian Pacific American Heritage (APA) month, Black History Month and Hispanic Heritage Month are well-meaning attempts at promoting diversity and multiculturalism. But in a San Francisco that’s one-third Asian, celebrating APA month seems a bit like carrying rice to China.

True, San Francisco is a city where Asian political power is nowhere close to representative of the city’s Asian population. Only one Asian remains on the Board of Supervisors, while another high-profile Asian city official, the assessor, recently handed in her papers.

Well I feel like after reading that I should find out for myself what Asian Pacific American Heritage month is all about, so I googled it and found this site.

In May 1990, the holiday was expanded further when President George H. W. Bush designated May to be Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. May was chosen to commemorate the immigration of the first Japanese to the United States on May 7, 1843, and to mark the anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869. The majority of the workers who laid the tracks were Chinese immigrants.

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month is celebrated with community festivals, government-sponsored activities, and educational activities for students. This year’s theme is “Freedom for All—A Nation We Call Our Own.”

Somewhere, a bench is about to have a really famous butt on it:

Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar will be out of action for at least four months after undergoing surgery on his troublesome elbow.

The 32-year-old batsman had the operation in London on Monday.

Karunakaran Nair, the secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, said he could not say how long Tendulkar would be out for...

He first suffered what was originally described as "tennis elbow" while batting in the nets in the Netherlands last August.

This one may kick up a debate. Was the owner being racist or incredibly ignorant in his political correctness? The Star Tribune reports (free reg. required):

A federal lawsuit filed Tuesday contends that suburban (near Minneapolis) car dealer Iten Chevrolet has engaged in a pattern of racial discrimination, including instances in which managers used racial epithets in describing employees and customers who were members of minority groups.

The dealership is a longtime fixture in Brooklyn Center, and sits near some of the metro area’s most racially diverse neighborhoods. It faced similar complaints in the 1990s, reaching an of-court settlement of allegations that racial stereotypes and off-color jokes were common at the company.

Iten’s attorney, William Clelland, called the latest accusations “outrageous” and “lurid.” He said the lawsuit was filed after an attorney for Ron Budhram, a fired employee who is Indian-American, set Tuesday as a deadline for the dealership to agree to a $450,000 settlement.

So apparently Budhram was let go because the owners didn’t appreciate the fact that he moonlighted on the side (as others did as well he claims). The lawsuit however goes into details as to what Budhram cited as discriminatory:

Budhram said the dealership had a racially discriminatory atmosphere during his employment, much of it directed at blacks. In one instance, the suit said, a business consultant at the dealership came across a group of minority and white employees as they were eating and asked, “Why are all the dark-skinned employees standing around?”

Yes, we’re beating the M.I.A. horse into a thick, gluey paste, but this is about free stuff, so there will be no apologies:

Wordsmith Dawesar presents her electrifying Babyji in DC tomorrow night:

Reading from BABYJI
Olsson's Books @ Penn Quarter
418 7th Street NW
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Thursday May 26th, 7 PM.
202-638-7610

I'm almost done with it and it's fantastic; Babyji may accomplish what even my father couldn't-- it might persuade me to study physics. Intrigued? You should be. What other novel contains a come on like, "I want to collapse my wave function into you." Now that's hot. ;)

Filmmaker Ismail Merchant, whose films won six Oscars, passed away today at age 68 (thanks, Paranoid Android):

He died in a London hospital this afternoon, his office said. The cause of death was unclear, but a spokesman said the Indian-born producer had suffered from stomach problems over the past year…

Along with his creative partner James Ivory, he made such acclaimed period films such as Howards End, A Room With A View and Remains of the Day…

Merchant was born in Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay, in December 1936 and educated in New York. [BBC]

Merchant… had been unwell for some time and recently underwent surgery for abdominal ulcers, according to Indian television reports.

Merchant and Ivory, an American, made some 40 films together and won six Oscars — four for best picture — since forming their famous partnership in 1961 with German-born screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. [MSNBC]

Merchant left behind his family as well as long-time partner James Ivory. He focused on producing but also directed one of my favorite films, Muhafiz (In Custody). (Has anyone truly lived until they’ve seen Shabana Azmi sing a ghazal Umrao Jaan-style?) His partner and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala helped Merchant churn out a lengthy body of work.

Update: The LAT says Merchant revived his genre:

Merchant not only adapted great books by Henry James, E.M. Forster and V.S. Naipaul, but also helped establish the careers of a new wave of renowned English actors, including Hugh Grant (“Maurice”), Helena Bonham-Carter (“A Room with a View”) and Emma Thompson (“Howards End”)… The Merchant-Ivory model was soon widely imitated, as filmmakers as diverse as Martin Scorsese (“The Age of Innocence”) and Ang Lee (“Sense and Sensibility”) turned their cameras toward classic books.

SM reader Laks Raghupathi sends us a link to an article in the May 30th European edition of Newsweek Magazine, titled The Big Squeeze. In it we see a yellow man, ostensibly representing a Chinaman, and a brown guy with a small red dot on his forehead. The brown guy appears to be squeezing the balls of the poor white guy (a.k.a. white-collared worker), as if all Americans and Europeans losing jobs are white. The white guy also appears to be wearing a bow-tie (what IS it with bow-ties?).

15 years after U.S. and European multinationals started shipping large numbers of manufacturing jobs overseas, experts are saying that the “second wave” of offshoring is at hand—and it promises to be bigger and more disruptive to the U.S. and European job markets than the first. In the years ahead, sizable numbers of skilled, reasonably well-educated middle-income workers in service-sector jobs long considered safe from foreign trade—accounting, law, financial and risk management, health care and information technology, to name a few—could be facing layoffs or serious wage pressure as developing nations perform increasingly sophisticated offshore work. The shift portends a dramatic realignment of wealth over the next couple of generations—valued by the U.S. consultancy McKinsey Co. at “hundreds of billions of dollars.”

I went over to Joel Elrod’s website to see his other work (which is quite good) and couldn’t find anything with this sort of xenophobic tone, which leads me to believe that Newsweek must have specifically commissioned this type of thing from him.

Bollywood legend Sunil Dutt died earlier today of a heart attack in Bombay. On June 6, he would have been 76.

A concise bio:

Balraj Dutt was born in Khurd, Jhelum District (now Pakistan) in 1929. He worked as an announcer on Radio Ceylon before launching his film career. Success came quickly with Mother India in which he played the outlaw hero son of Nargis, who later became his wife. He also played a series of clean- cut modern youths in the late 50's and was a talented comedian. He made his directorial debut in 1964 with Yaadein, an experimental one-man show, and was responsible for launching his son's career in 1981 when he directed him in Rocky. Like his wife he entered politics, becoming an MP representing Congress (I) in North Bombay in 1979.

My earliest memory of a Bollywood film involved "Dutt Sahib" as Birju in 1957's seminal Mother India; I will never forget the look on his face or the sound of his voice in the scene involving his long-suffering Mother's (Nargis) bracelets. I remember my father telling me the following anecdote, much to my delight:

It is a well-known story that while shooting for the film, Nargis was trapped amidst lit haystacks. As the flames got higher and higher, Sunil Dutt playing her rebellious son, Birju, in the film ran through the fire and rescued her. He proposed to her and Nargis married Sunil Dutt and quit films after marriage.

A series of Pakistan updates from StrategyPage includes a minor bombshell about US troops / CIA operating inside Pakistan -

May 25, 2005: Pakistani officials say that recent arrests of al Qaeda members has led to a breakthrough in finding out how Islamic terrorists are organized, and operate, in Pakistan. This had led to many more arrests, and paralysis of the terrorist organization inside Pakistan...

May 23, 2005: The Pakistani government has admitted what has been widely known for several years: American troops and intelligence agencies have been allowed to operate, discretely, inside Pakistan. Recently, a terrorist leader was killed by a Hellfire missile, fired by a Predator UAV flying in Pakistani air space. American agents have been interrogating terrorism suspects held in Pakistani jails. This cooperation has been kept "secret" because so many Pakistanis find it distasteful. But Islamic terrorists have made themselves so unpopular in Pakistan, that admitting the cooperation has done less damage than expected.

Taste? The issue is actually far more than that... The classic, international test of sovereignty is a monopoly on legal force within your territory. The US isn't allowed, for ex., to chase a fugitive into Canada - it's instead supposed to inform & trust Canadian authorities and secure extradition instead.

Allowing US troops/CIA to conduct combat operations within your country is a major, uh, relaxation of the doctrine of force monopoly. In fact, under normal circumstances, such territorial violation - even if targetting someone else entirely - is tantamount to war. For example, this report of a border skirmish gives you an idea of the type of response such an incursion is supposed to receive -

Pakistan cooperates in operations to corner al-Qaida fugitives hiding along the 1,400-mile border but vehemently rejects suggestions that American troops should be allowed to cross into its territory.

Pakistani troops opened fire on a joint US-Afghan patrol that strayed across the border on January 30, killing one Afghan soldier, Gen Hussain said.

"We warned them 'You are in Pakistan, please go back' through a loudhailer, and fired warning shots in the air. They kept going. Thereafter we opened up on them," he said.

My bet? This feisty story was part of the Pakistani govt's PR game to preserve this important international norm. Clue #1? Just like Ensign Smith, the perenniel new, 5th guy on a Star Trek away team, it's the unnamed Afghan who gets killed by the proud Pakistani Border Patrol. Then again, the hunt for Al Qaeda and, for that matter, Pakistan's infamous Western territories are far from normal circumstances.

The Los Angeles Times introduces chaat to the mainstream, and offers up some recipes. Give them a try, and then lament the fact that it’s still nowhere near as good as momma used to make:
• Bhel puri
• Pav bhaji
• Lamb frankie
• Tamarind and date chutney
• Green chutney

This one should be a no-brainer — don’t ever bring your prostitute home to meet your wife:

Doctors in Uttar Pradesh, India, have reattached a man’s penis after it was cut off by his wife. His wife said she was fed up with his womanising. Things came to a head when he brought a prostitute home. [Medical News Today]

Sure, the concept of a detachable penis sounds great in theory, but once you get one, you can’t wait to get it reattached:

His penis was reattached by a team of doctors, led by Dr. A Singh. According to doctor Singh, we will have to wait and see whether the man will ever be able to have sex again. [Medical News Today]

Mentioned briefly in an earlier post.

NPR’s “All Things Considered” has an audio report about the modern-day usage of the Chitravina (Real and Windows Media, 7 mins.):

The slide guitar is a beloved voice in blues, country and rock music. In India, slide musicians favor an ancient instrument called the Chitravina. N. Ravikiran, one of the country’s best-known players, hopes to expand the instrument’s popularity and push its musical frontiers. [NPR]

Dot from over at Ishbadiddle informs us of a new documentary titled, “Dastar: Defining Sikh Identity.” The Panthic Weekly reports:

Kevin Lee’s documentary shows the struggle of the American-Sikh community to overcome the hatred, fear and intolerance it faces from fellow Americans due to its wearing of the essential symbol of the Sikh faith — the “dastaar” (turban), a press release by the Sikh Coalition stated.

The film also explores how media imagery fuels association of the turban with terrorism, leading to widespread discrimination against Sikhs. This documentary has already been screened in Chicago at the 2005 Asian American Showcase event and at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. It is scheduled to be screened in July at the AAIFF before being part of its national tour.

Dot points out that “the film features interviews with several people mentioned previously on SM, including Kevin Harrington the MTA subway operator, and footage of the guy who was sentenced to do community service at three Sikh temples after attacking a Sikh.”

You can view the entire film online by clicking one of the links below. If you live in NYC however I suggest instead that you view it at the 28th Annual Asian American International Film Festival (AAIFF) :

Small file .wmv

Large file .avi

How two brothers from Delhi went from serving H-addled clubgoers to serving coke-addled agents:

The L.A. segment of their story began when the newly arrived Sean G, now a fit, head-shaven 34-year-old, was working as a parking attendant at Tower Video on Sunset. A regular customer often chatted with him. Sean G enjoyed the talks but was curious why this young man always drew a crowd. He soon realized he’d been talking to Johnny Depp, who got him a job in the cashier’s booth at the Viper Room, which Depp owned at the time. The idea of Sean G greeting habitues of the Viper Room has a certain Candide-like charm. He is hardly the image of perdition. He runs upwards of ten miles a day, has never been late for a job or called in sick. Even the way he came to work at Barney Greengrass is based on the desire for self-improvement that night workers occasionally flirt with. “I should do something with my days,” Sean G remembers thinking. “I should learn something.” A Viper Room barman brought him to the deli and showed him the ropes. “I never ate this food,” Sean G says. “I didn’t know what a bagel was, or nova, or cream cheese.” He got his brother a job there, too. [Los Angeles Magazine]

Professional Indian women are trading one type of pleated garment for a far less attractive substitute (unless they're choosing "flat-fronts", that is):

A survey of Indian women's preferred daily clothing has shown that more female professionals are choosing trousers over the traditional sari. The study results show that sales of women's trousers have surged by almost 10% over the last two years.

Why all the drama?

"Let's face it, the sari is not an easy garment to deal with. Women find it difficult to work in it with all the pleats and it does tend to be cumbersome," fashion writer Hindol Sengupta told the BBC.

Worry not, traditionalists. Regular old Indian clothes still account "for three-quarters of the women's apparel market". Huzzah.

Two bloggers psychoanalyze a Sikh religious body which lobbied against Jo Bole So Nihaal. But their analysis also applies to the rise of virtually all lobbying groups. Mass outrage focused through the lens of a group wields power like a typhoon. Eventually the middlemen siphon off funding for themselves, and the groups self-perpetuate with or without legitimate grievances.

Arnab Ray says:

This is not the first time that religious loons have objected to titles and sequences of movies. The song “Mustafa Mustafa” from “Aatish” which had Raveena and Karishma cavorting in revealing attire had to be changed to “Dilruba Dilruba” following protests from Muslims. Mani Ratnam had a bomb thrown at him for having a Bal Thackeray-lookalike in Bombay.

Usually these things are solved by the producer/director going to one of the self-styled defenders of morality and making some discreet payoffs euphemistically called “seeking blessings/clearing misunderstandings”. The morality police get their dues, the producers get the free publicity and everyone is happy…

… money had exchanged hands, sins had been expiated, everything was right with the world. And yet people wind up dead. What the hell happened?

Amardeep says:

… Until yesterday, the invocation of “blasphemy” seemed pretty laughable… The SGPC seems increasingly like an organization desperate for direction, now that their established enemies — the Congress Party, the Nehru family, the Indian Army’s counter-terrorist measures in Punjab — have either dwindled or transformed. In an era when the Prime Minister is himself a practicing, if secular, Sikh, Sikh organizations in India can no longer claim exclusion or discrimination. They have as a result chosen to mimic the world-wide rhetoric of religious outrage, exemplified in India by the RSS and by conservative Muslim groups. The rhetoric of outrage is, it seems, the primary way in which religious leaders — around the world, and in every major religious community — attempt to make themselves relevant to modernity.

Amazon on both sides of the pond has posted cover concepts for the new novels by Salman Rushdie and Zadie Smith (thanks, Sapna). Rushdie fires first on Sep. 5, Smith the following week. As anyone in mass marketing will tell you, new products crowd the first weeks of autumn. Books and babies are best launched after the summer doldrums.

Previous posts: 1, 2

Little-known fact: If a wedding announcement in The New York Times does not carry a photo, the marriage is considered unofficial in the eyes of God. Other than that, there is nothing out-of-the-ordinary about this one.

I have been thinking about prison a lot lately while the lyrics to Black Steel echo in my mind. If I were to be incarcerated how would I get by? I am a pretty small guy compared to all the big guys in there. I have always felt that I would be the Andy Dufresne of my cell block, keeping hope alive. Lately, in order to calm my prison fears, I have been reading up on how to make prison weapons. Ever since that 60 Minutes episode showed how to make a lethal crossbow using underwear and a plastic knife I haven’t been able to sleep. I bought a bunch of tighty whiteys and have been taking some of them apart to practice making the crossbow. Prison is tough. The LA Times and several others have been reporting on a lawsuit that the ACLU and ENSAAF filed against the Yuba County, CA Sheriff’s Department:

The American Civil Liberties Union is suing the Yuba County Sheriff’s Department on behalf of a Sikh asylum seeker who says his religious rights are being violated because jail officials refuse to let him wear a turban at all times.

Harpal Singh Cheema, 47, an Indian national, was detained by immigration authorities in 1997. He has been held at the Yuba County Jail since September 2002.

It’s troubling that he has been detained for as long as he has and, at the same time, that he is not being allowed to comply with the fundamental requirements of his religion,” said Robin Goldfaden, an ACLU staff attorney.

“He has been subjected to conditions that go against constitutional and statutory guidelines that are there to allow freedom to exercise one’s religion.”

Perhaps there is some way in which a turban can be used as a weapon? It has far more fabric than mere underwear.

Yuba County Counsel Dan Montgomery said head coverings were generally allowed as long as they were “consistent with safety and security and the orderly operation of the facility” and were not “perceived as posing a threat.”

He noted, however, that a turban could be used to conceal a weapon or contraband.

“Approaching a male Sikh and taking his turban off is a great affront, so the ability to search is impaired,” Montgomery said.

Last week, 65 year old Dr. Gulam Moonda, of Hermitage, PA (an Indian-American physician) was executed on the side of the Ohio turnpike (a well traveled highway) while his wife and mother in-law sat helplessly in the car. This has been a pretty well-publicized story due to the brazen nature of the killing. The Toledo Blade reported:

Gulam Moonda, 65, of Hermitage, Pa., died from a single gunshot wound in the head during a roadside robbery. Lt. Rick Zwayer, a spokesman for the Ohio Highway Patrol, said the incident occurred at 6:38 p.m. Friday after Dr. Moonda and two other people in his 2000 Jaguar stopped along westbound I-80 to exchange drivers.

The lieutenant said the suspect allegedly stopped behind Dr. Moonda and demanded money. He complied, but the suspect shot him and fled the scene. Authorities are searching for a dark-colored van but have not released a further description of the vehicle or of the suspect.

According to a Good Samaritan who was first upon the scene, his wife was described as frantic and waving her hands wildly to flag down a passing car for help. WKCY.com reported:

The Good Samaritan doesn’t want to be identified until the killer is caught. But he won’t be silenced about what he saw. He will never forget, a wife trying to save her husband.

In the frantic moments after the shooting, Dr. Gulam Moonda’s wife and his mother-in-law desperately tried to flag down other drivers for help.

In 2000, the University of Wisconsin at Madison was caught inserting the face of a black student into a photo of white Badgers fans for the cover of its undergraduate application:

“Robert Seltzer came to me, initially, with the photo - the undoctored one - and said he was going to use it for the cover,” Barrows said. Barrows, who is black, said he objected to the choice, arguing that the all-white crowd did not reflect the image the university was trying to portray…

Seltzer, who is white, agreed that the photo did not reflect UW-Madison, where minorities make up more than 9% of the school’s enrollment… So when Seltzer was provided with a photo in which the head of a black student was electronically clipped from a photo from another campus event in 1994, and then reversed and inserted into the corner of the football photo, he approved it…

… Gould noticed late last week that the face of the black student, Diallo Shabazz, looked different from the others in the picture… “So Anna looked at the picture, noticed the glare and said, ‘Something isn’t right here.’ “

The university has apologized to application recipients and says they’ve learned from their mistake. By which they mean that next time, they’ll match the light source and contrast for a more believable fake.

Earlier this year, Sepia Mutiny itself was caught digitally inserting an underrepresented minority into a photo:

‘Sepiagate’ was a stain on our blogging credibility, and we’ve vowed never to repeat it.

However, we now feel absolved or, at the very least, in good company. Turns out that Hollywood has been caught doing exactly the same thing, albeit with more technical sophistication. They surveyed global film audiences and used a 64,000-processor supercomputer to calculate, with high degree of precision, the whitest man alive. They shot hours and hours of footage of that man. They crudely pasted him into scenes where he was clearly out of place, attempting things beyond his capabilities like ‘dancing’ and ‘emoting.’ And the sad thing is, so far there hasn’t even been a whisper of an apology to filmgoers like you and me.

It’s pretty subtle, but see if you can spot the forgery:

A while back, SM profiled Mr. Hemant Lakhani, a Brit national accused of trying to sell missiles to Islamo-fundi-fascists. When asked Do You Feel Safer, one SM commenter noted -

I again wonder whether the government will be engaging in similar efforts to target White Christian populations in Michigan

Well, rest a little easier gentle reader, in what appears to be a near perfect copy of the Lakhani "sting", a 68 yr old PA man (presumably a white christian?) has been arrested trying to sell bombs to an undercover agent posing as an Al Qaeda operative -

A 68-year-old Pennsylvania man was arrested on charges he tried to build a bomb and sell it to an agent he thought was a member of Al-Qaida, officials said Monday.

Ronald Allen Grecula of Bangor, Pa., was arrested Friday in Houston during a meeting with undercover FBI agents...

If only Mr. Grecula had read Sepia Mutiny, he'd know that this particular line of biz - esp. if you're an amateur - isn't one you wanna dip your toe into... BTW, Mr. Grecula, the racial profiling defense didn't work too well in Mr. Lakhani's case, I doubt you'll have better luck with it.

Karthik explains that Bollywood villains and temptresses are auspiciously named:

… [Saul] Bellow famously gave his characters physical traits that seemed to describe their characters… Indian movies, on the other hand, turned names into characterological maps. Pauls and Peters always had ill-fitting goatees, and took orders from their boss to do bad things, while Ritas and Sonas wore glittering, pointy boobed costumes that showed off a lot of thigh (and there was a lot of thigh to show off) and danced badly.

The Bollywood conception of the bad girl, the westernized one with a kicky English name, bobbed hair and go-go boots, always tickled me. And villains got the best names.

Sith, they’re no worse than ‘Bail Organa’ — felonious prick? And ‘General Grievous’ has no pretensions above pulp. You’d expect General-ji in the WWE.

The Gray Lady’s reader advocate shows the back of the hand to a NYT reporter who dissed Padma Lakshmi and Indian fashion (thanks, akhan):

“A semicelebrated hustler Ms. Lakshmi may be.” - Fashion writer Guy Trebay on Padma Lakshmi, Feb. 8.

… gratuitously nasty, and inappropriate in a newspaper that many of us look to as a guardian of civil discussion.

If gratuitous snark were banned, blogs would go begging for want of readers.

After complaints that a film by a Sikh director and a Sikh actor is insulting to Sikhism, some protozoans hid bombs in two Delhi theaters (thanks, Sapna). At least 44 people were wounded when the bombs went off this evening, some critically:

Bombs exploded inside two movie theatres showing a controversial Hindi-language film in the Indian capital on Sunday, injuring at least 20 people, officials said. Both theatres are located in the Karol Bagh neighbourhood of west Delhi and the explosions occurred 15 minutes apart, said Junior Home Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal.

At least 13 people were injured in the first blast at the Liberty Cinema about 20:30 (15:00 GMT), chief fire officer RC Sharma said. The explosive was planted under a seat in the front rows, he said. About 15 minutes later, another explosion rocked the nearby Satyam Cinema, wounding at least seven people, Sharma said. At Satyam, the bomb went off inside the washroom. [News 24]

There’s some discrepancy regarding where the first bomb was placed:

The intensity of the blast was so powerful that the police fear that many of the injured, who are currently undergoing treatment at Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, may succumb to their injuries… Explosions, suspected to be caused by bombs, occurred at Liberty cinema hall took place in the rear stall during the screening of the controversial film Jo Bole So Nihaal. The blast at Satyam took place in a toilet. PVR cinema halls in south Delhi has also been evacuated as a precautionary measure. [Times of India]

Members of Sikhism’s highest body, the Akal Takht, said the film, Jo Bole So Nihaal, was ok by them, so I wonder about the rationality of blowing people up in a neighborhood that’s itself full of Sikhs. It’s true that it’s not entirely cool to explicitly play to dismissive stereotypes — the official site begins with ‘He is cute! He is adorable!’ And using a religious phrase as a title was bound to chafe in a religion-obsessed country:

Some Sikh groups had taken offence at the use of the religious phrase in the title and to some scenes in the film which showed characters entering Sikh places of worship without removing their shoes and covering their heads — considered sacrilege by Sikhism. [Reuters]

But dissing a movie is the realm of bloggers and movie reviewers. This violent reaction to a schlocky, anti-terrorist Bollywood film is self-defeating on every level. You think a movie insults religion and shows people in a bad light? Try mass murder. I hope these criminals are hunted down and granted the love of a good Indian jailer.

Like Kal Ho Naa Ho, the movie is set partly in New York and shows off the Brooklyn Bridge. It’s playing at Loews State in Times Square:

… Sikh groups demanded a ban on it. They were angered by its title and scenes depicting a Sikh character being chased by scantily clad women.

I have no doubt that Vikram Chatwal begged to be included.

Here are more news stories about the bombings.

Cruel and unusual punishment? From NRI-worldwide (scroll down past the article about the bobbitised penis):

In confinement for the last two years on charges of theft, inside cell number 11 of the Ghaziabad district jail his only companions were the 120 white pigeons whom he met once a day to feed grains and corn.

But not any more.

Bringing an end to what many inmates believed was “an immortal friendship”, perverted jail authorities caught 100 of Chandra’s pigeons and broke their necks, one by one, in front of him on May 16.

This was done by jailer R.C.Singh and his men on instructions from the jail superintendent Rajesh Kesarwani, as a way to make Chandra admit to his crime.

The 1957 Indian film Pyassa (which I have neither seen nor even heard of) has made Time Magazine’s “All Time 100 Movies.” This isn’t surprising given that reviewer Richard Corliss is a Bollywood fan:

Like Japan, India had a golden age in the 1950s. Independence from Britain sparked a robust, questioning artistry. While Satyajit Ray was pioneering the nation’s art cinema, commercial filmmakers such as Raj Kapoor (Awaara), Mehboob Khan (Mother India) and Bimal Roy (Do Bigha Zamin) were grafting influences from Hollywood melodramas and Italian neo-realism onto the Indian tradition of musical narrative. Pyaasa, which means thirst, is the most soulfully romantic of the lot. Vijay (Dutt) is an unpublished poet, dismissed by family and office colleagues but befriended by a prostitute (Waheeda Rehman). In a twist out of Sullivan’s Travels, Vijay is believed dead and his poetry “posthumously” lionized. The writer-producer-director-star paints a glamorous portrait of an artist’s isolation through dappled imagery and the sensitive picturizing of S.D. Burman’s famous songs. And Rehman, in her screen debut, is sultry, radiant—a woman to bring out the poet in any man, on screen or in the audience. —R.C.

Other Indian films that made the list included The Apu Trilogy, and Nayakan.

The Hindustan Times reports on the first Asian mayor of the England’s second largest city, Manchester.

Afzal Khan who came from Pakistan to Britain at the age of 12 had nothing to look forward to. He had no education and no money, but now 35 years later at 47, he has become the first Asian Mayor of Manchester, the second biggest city in Britain.

He said his appointment reflected the diversity of Manchester’s ethnicity and demonstrated the contribution immigrants can make. “They can provide a city with an infusion of energy and creativity,” he said.

There was this one line that caught my eye,

Khan has a reputation for taking firm stands on ethnicity. He has supported the idea of celebrating Englishness through a patron saint as a way of enforcing community cohesion and, although he is a former assistant secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, he has not adhered to its policy of boycotting National Holocaust Day Remembrance services.

You know what? There ain’t no shame in my game. I’ll be the first to admit it. If I ever end up doing hard time in prison, I’d end up as this guy’s bitch. In the segregated prison system, brown-folk got to stick together. Dalip Singh will co-star in the Adam Sandler re-make of the film “The Longest Yard” which opens on May 27th. He will play a convict named Turley Lobo Sebastian.

Unique in his giant-sized 7’ 2” stance, wrestler DALIP SINGH commands attention amongst all people in every part of the world. He was born into a poor family in the village of Dhirana in Himachal Pradesh of Punjab, India and is the third of eight siblings. At a young age, he earned a daily wage as a roadside stone breaker to help provide for his family.

In 1993, Dalip was still working as a road laborer in the Himalya Hills when his life’s circumstances began to change. By this time he had tried his hand at many sports. He excelled in all of them, but showed exceptional talent in body building. The Director General of the Punjab Police Department took notice of Dalip and helped him join the police force. The change in employment allowed Dalip to further his body building training and he subsequently won titles of Mr. India in 1997 and 1998. His success and hard work led him to train as a wrestler in the U.S. in 1999, where he developed the skills necessary to compete on a global stage, enabling him to win numerous wrestling titles in Japan, where he is currently a very popular figure. Dalip’s training schedule consists of two hours of weight training, morning and evening, every day. His chest measures at 65 inches and he weighs in at approximately 400 lbs. Maintaining his size requires a strict and intimidating daily dietary regimen: one gallon of milk, five chickens, and two dozen eggs, along with chapatis, juice, and fruit.

Dalip is very religious and adamant in his stance against ethnic violence. He is a true humanitarian. His goal in life is to support his family and aid the entire village that is his home. He hopes to benefit the welfare of disabled persons and children born into poverty. He is an active mentor to young people, encouraging them to stay away from drugs and urging them to find discipline, health and success by taking up sports. Dalip was married February 27, 2002 to Harpinder Kaur in a Hindu ceremony with the blessings of his Guru, Shri Ashutosh Maharaj Ji. He still serves as a member of the police force having recently been promoted to Sub Inspector of Punjab Police. Dalip is proud to make his debut as an actor in the US with a role in “The Longest Yard.”

FIVE CHICKENS!

Here’s the European title of Harold and Kumar. The subtitle reads ‘Harold & Kumar - Let’s Get Retarded,’ which is maybe redundant.

There are actual castles instead of White Castles out there, so they didn’t want people getting all confused. And unlike us Americans, those Euros gleefully tolerate cheesecake.

Nope, no cheesecake on this here blog ;)

I'll say it, ain't no shame in my game, I LOVE the New York Post. Kindly tell me what other paper entertains so thoroughly for a mere $.50. Exactly.

An item in yesterday's metro edition caught my eye; buried way in the back, long after the gleeful schadenfreude of page six, I saw the words Black Narcissus in a caption that was being suffocated by movie listings.

Intrigued, I did a double-take while slowly remembering that this was a book by Indian-born, erstwhile resident of Kashmir Rumer Godden, an author I had adored when I was much younger and sadder. Down went the paper and to the iBook I turned. IMDB was immediately summoned and I chortled at the movie's tagline:

A Story to Storm Your Heart! Drama at the top of the world ... where winds of the exotic past sweep men and women to strange and fascinating adventure...

Well, "top of the world" obviously means India. I mean, duh. More:

Anglican nuns, led by the stern Sister Clodagh, attempt to establish a religious community in the Himalayas, and must battle not only suspicious locals and the elements, but their own demons as well.

Oooooooh. They battled their own demons as well? Exciting!

I noticed that one of the cast members had a very Malayalee name, so I predictably clicked through to find out more about..."Sabu", aka "The first Indian and middle-eastern actor to make it big in Hollywood." Apparently "he was restricted to stereotypical roles of Indians." Wow, that's so sad, I mean, look at how far we've come! Indians aren't subject to such narrow-minded casting now, thank goodness. *gag*

The ghost of Rudyard Kipling lives on in neocolonialist blog Arma Virumque (thanks, Saheli and many others):

… this third-world feminist of color should get down on her knees and thank Siva that her country was the beneficiary of British colonialism. Without it, she would never have heard of feminism or even of the third world, since the very concept depends upon the freedom, education, and language that the West brought to savages [sic] countries in the 18th and 19th centuries. India is such an economic powerhouse today because of the legacy bequeathed by her former colonial rulers… everywhere that Britain went—I cannot think of a single exception—it left better off.

The right-wing blog Power Line chimes in:

It’s great to see someone standing up for colonialism, especially British colonialism.

The author, Roger Kimball, picks the wrong deity and only gets lamer from there. This hapless duffer who calls himself an American patriot is arguing against American independence, which happened precisely because the crown raped its colonies and kept its boot upon the throat of political freedom. And in crediting the Brits with everything, despite their focus on their own economic interests, he falls prey to the classic fallacy of correlation vs. causation. It’s the one made famous by animism and sports superstition: ‘I wore a cap one day, I won, therefore my cap caused the victory.’

For Kimball to give the Brits all credit requires projecting an artificial stasis in India for 200 years. If you flash-freeze hundreds of millions of people and put them into deep hibernation for two centuries, that they’ll end up relatively poor is a tautology. You have to project India along the political, developmental and educational trajectories of similar regions not under colonial rule. Otherwise you’re reduced to a bogus argument: that absent the British, India would never have built a railroad, regional highways, river ports or seaports. Even the smallest and poorest of nations have managed that, if for no other reason than the economic interests of their kleptocrats.

Absent Ford, someone still would have popularized the automobile. Absent Microsoft, someone still would have popularized an operating system. And absent the British, India still would have had transport.

Attack of the blog roundups: MSNBC showed a screenshot of Vinod’s Indra Nooyi post today. Watch the clip.

They focused on Nooyi’s actual remarks and her position as Pepsi president, not the nativist backlash, which is exactly right. Oddly, they quoted the mildest phrase that’s ever been written on Little Green Frothballs: ‘I drink Coke anyway.’

This actually isn’t Vinod’s first time on an NBC network — here’s a photo of his appearance on CNBC several years ago. I’m not sure why he looks angry, but maybe someone stole his copy of ZAMM.

Also, Slate mentioned our MIT time traveler post last week, which Abhi first wrote about.

Thanks for the pixels, anonymous bored journies! Do your bosses know you surf blogs instead of working? Not that you’ll ever read this unless it pops up on Technorati with keywords about national stories. Unfortunately, I don’t see us writing about PARIS HILTON, MICHAEL JACKSON or TERRY SCHIAVO without a genuine desi angle. That would just be crass.

But The Daily Show was right, reading blogs out loud on TV does look pretty silly (watch clip). How about showing our dating profiles next time? Now that would be useful TV ;)

Hopefully this is the last installment in an unfortunate story & we can put it all to rest. Indra Nooyi posts on PepsiCo's website -

Following my remarks to the graduating class of Columbia University’s Business School in New York City, I have come to realize that my words and examples about America unintentionally depicted our country negatively and hurt people.

I appreciate the honest comments that have been shared with me since then, and am deeply sorry for offending anyone. I love America unshakably – without hesitation – and am extremely grateful for the opportunities and support our great nation has always provided me.

Over the years I’ve witnessed and advised others how a thoughtless gesture or comment can hurt good, caring people. Regrettably, I’ve proven my own point. Please accept my sincere apologies.

Initial SM coverage here. Manish's survey of "wingnut" reactions here.

I was enjoying Slate’s coverage of the “Army of the Monkey God” until today. This is the lead picture on Slate.com today. Its one thing to report on the activities of adults but its another thing entirely to “exploit” young kids for an attention grabbing money shot like this one. Little kids all over the world will ape the adults around them. That’s common knowledge. To pass this off a militancy amongst the youth by referencing a Tom Clancy novel about a nuclear terrorist attack, is more than a bit lame. “Look at the hateful litte brown kids.” You see these same types of exploitive pictures from Palestine all the time.

Hmmmm. Come to think of it though it would make a good banner for our site.

Previous posts: 1,2

An operation to rescue endangered sharks from poachers went horribly wrong recently when the rescuers…oh I can’t even explain it. From the BBC:

An effort to save nearly 50 live sharks from poachers in the Sunderbans area of the Indian state of West Bengal appears to have gone disastrously wrong.

Wildlife officials say that although the sharks were initially recovered alive, several mishaps meant that they all died as the poachers were arrested.

Okay so here is the ridiculous punchline:

They say that the raiding party which intercepted the poachers - afraid of the dangers posed by the sharks - ordered them to throw the sharks from the deck of their vessel onto the sand by a jetty.

Ummm. This is what happens when you sit in front of the television and watch Shark Week all…week. Then the officials try to play it off all smooth like:

“The raiding part made a mistake. In the chaos that followed the seizure and the arrests, they were busy with other things, and forgot to preserve the sharks,”

In news that shocked Edna and Wilbur Johnson of Beulah, North Dakota, it’s been discovered IITians are really, really smart. Mitra covers the big IIT reunion in DC:

… [IIT] alumni say American friends are starting to rank the institution with Harvard and MIT… Shenoy related that when his son, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology student, was asked by a professor where his parents went to college, he replied: “My dad went to IIT and my mom went to MIT.”

In turn, his son’s MIT professor said, ” ‘Your dad went to IIT?’ ” Suresh Shenoy recounted, mimicking an incredulous yet impressed inflection. “My wife hates it,” Shenoy said.

No, I bet their son hates it. IIT + MIT = unholy geekiness. Or perhaps your mom helps you install Linux on your iPod. Hey, that’s actually kinda cool…

Tonight on ABC's Nightline with Ted Koppel for May 20, 2005: South Asian American author Asra Nomani. Nomani left Pakistan shaken by the brutal murder of her friend Daniel Pearl; citing that as the catalyst for her transformation from devout Muslim to devout Muslim Activist, the iconoclast returned to her home state of West Virginia--where her father had helped start Morgantown's Mosque-- and chose to sit with the men of her congregation. Nomani pointed out that this is allowed in Mecca, but the leaders of her mosque want to banish her anyway. Begin: drama.

From Mecca to Morgantown: Questioning Islamic Traditions will probably air at 11:30pm.

StrategyPage has an interesting description of how the F-16s will impact the Pakistani Air Force -

May 20, 2005: The American decision to sell new F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan comes not a moment too soon for the Pakistan Air Force (PAF). PAF used to have technological superiority over it's Indian counterpart as recently as the 1980s, when PAF received some 40 state of the art F-16 Block 15 fighters. These aircraft were were a cut above the warplanes of the Indian Air Force (IAF).

However, all changed in the 1990s, when the US sanctioned Pakistan for nuclear weapons development and stopped delivery of more F-16s. What's worse, the spares for PAF's existing F-16s dried up as well and the air force had to effectively ground its F-16 fleet for a few years. Meanwhile, IAF began to induct the powerful Sukhoi-30 MKI air superiority fighter, even as it added new capabilities to its existing Mirage-2000 and MiG-29 fighters by equipping them with Beyond Visual Range (BVR) missiles. This posed a particular threat to PAF, which lacked BVR capability.

(quoting in full b/c of StrategyPage's non-existant permalinks)

Sheba Mariam George, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles, is set to release a book next month titled, When Women Come First: Gender and Class in Transnational Migration:

With a subtle yet penetrating understanding of the intricate interplay of gender, race, and class, Sheba George examines an unusual immigration pattern to analyze what happens when women who migrate before men become the breadwinners in the family. Focusing on a group of female nurses who moved from India to the United States before their husbands, she shows that this story of economic mobility and professional achievement conceals underlying conditions of upheaval not only in the families and immigrant community but also in the sending community in India. This richly textured and impeccably researched study deftly illustrates the complex reconfigurations of gender and class relations concealed behind a quintessential American success story.

When Women Come First explains how men who lost social status in the immigration process attempted to reclaim ground by creating new roles for themselves in their church. Ironically, they were stigmatized by other upper class immigrants as men who needed to “play in the church” because the “nurses were the bosses” in their homes. At the same time, the nurses were stigmatized as lower class, sexually loose women with too much independence. George’s absorbing story of how these women and men negotiate this complicated network provides a groundbreaking perspective on the shifting interactions of two nations and two cultures.

I think this might be a good stocking stuffer during Christmas for many Mallu moms. Apparently it wouldn’t be a good idea to let any men in the house see it though. You know, bruised egos and all.

A rookie air traffic controller just earned a medal for narrowly preventing an Air India disaster (thanks, Ennis). On July 24 last year, an Air India pilot landing at Newark Airport forgot to extend landing gear and came within half a mile of crashing the 747 on its belly. Was anyone you know on that flight?

I love it when desis take the initiative to cut through red tape, such as landing checklists with exaggerations like EXTEND WING FLAPS and LOWER LANDING GEAR. Bah, more unnecessary government regulation. You go, tiger!

One afternoon four years ago… out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a Comanche coming over the threshold and preparing to land. The aircraft’s landing gear was still up… my trainer told me, ‘Look for feet (landing gear). Always look for feet on the (propeller-powered aircraft). The prop guys don’t have the warning systems, but the jets will always have feet.’”

Fast forward to the afternoon of July 24, 2004… “We had a (Boeing) 747 coming in,” he said. “You can point out a 747 easily on a clear day.” It was Air India Flight 145, with 409 passengers aboard.

“He was on five-mile final approach,” Dittamo remarked. “I saw him but I couldn’t see gear.” With his Fort Lauderdale trainer’s instructions in his head - ‘Always look for feet’ - Dittamo glanced in a different direction and then turned back to the 747 to look again. No gear. “I thought, ‘something just doesn’t seem right,’” he said. “In my mind, I said I would pick it up in my next scan. But then I looked up and the plane definitely had no gear.”

By this point, Flight 145 was on a half-mile final at an altitude of 600 feet. “I was surprised he didn’t go around,” Dittamo stated. “I was going to let it go for one more second, because this was a critical phase of the flight for the crew. But then I just said to myself, ‘I’m not going to let this go for any longer.’”

Dittamo keyed the mike: “Air India 145, check gear down. Gear appears up.” The pilot acknowledged the transmission with a calm, “Air India 145.” Down came the gear and the 747 landed safely on Runway 4R.

A small bit of press for a hugely awesome event in New York this weekend:

C H I A S M A T A May 20-22, 2005 A three-day literary festival celebrating South Asian writing

The South Asian Women's Creative Collective (SAWCC) invite you to our
third annual literary event, celebrating the works of South Asian
writers.

Participants include Amitava Kumar, Abha Dawesar, Ginu Kamani, Mary
Anne Mohanraj, Meera Nair, Tahira Naqvi, S. Mitra Kalita, Bushra
Rehman, Shahnaz Habib, Prageeta Sharma, Alka Bhargava, Anna Ghosh,
Pooja Makhijani, Sangeeta Mehta and Neesha Meminger.

...and ME! ;) Well, only on Sunday. But I live in DC, so I have an excuse. Did I mention that the Saturday and Sunday events are FREE?

What: Literary festival including two evenings of readings and discussion, a writing workshop for emerging writers, and a panel discussion of south asians in publishing

When: May 20, 21, 22

Where: the Asian American Writers' Workshop, the Village Quill, and the Queens Museum of Art

Please visit the event page for further details.

See you there, if you know what's good for your soul. :)

Two new Desi cities added to the Craigs List family (they added Bangalore last year): Delhi and Mumbai.

Enjoy.

In 1959 journalist John Howard Griffin published Black Like Me. The book revealed his experiences as a white man disguised as a black man in the segregated south.

In 1959, Griffin, a noted white journalist, decided to try an experiment. He felt that the only way to determine the truth about how African Americans were treated by whites, and to learn if there was discrimination, was to become one. After a series of medical treatments that darkened his skin, he began his travels in the Deep South. Made up primarily of his journal entries during that time, Black Like Me, read by Ray Childs, details the experiences he had while passing for black. He finds that the people who saw him as white days earlier would not give him the time of day. He suffered even more as he rode buses in New Orleans, discovering how whites would no longer sit next to him. Listeners will be fascinated by his bus trip to Mississippi during which the driver would not let any of the African Americans off at a rest stop and how some of the passengers decided to deal with this slight. A fascinating view of life before the heyday of the Civil Rights movement, showing the difficulties of being black in America.

Perhaps inspired by knowledge of this book, Morgan Spurlock (yes, THAT Morgan Spurlock) will document what it is like for a Christian man to live as a Muslim for 30 days. [via DNSI]The BBC reports:

Morgan Spurlock, the director of the cult fast-food documentary Super Size Me, has filmed a Christian living as a Muslim for 30 days for a new TV series. The show is part of his new TV series 30 Days, which puts people in unfamiliar situations for a month.

The shows sees the Christian dealing with “what’s it like to be a Muslim in America … who is seen every day as a threat to our freedom.”

The new series starts in the US on 15 June on the FX network.

Other episodes of the new show include a conservative man living with a gay flatmate, and a woman embarking on a binge-drinking spree as a warning to her daughter.

I want Spurlock to do an episode on what happens to a perfectly reasonable and well adjusted young man, who starts blogging for thirty days straight. Here is what I envision: He loses fifteen lbs., he has no time for anything, and the veins in his head start to bulge. Like this.

The last time I was subjected to the water-boarding called looking for a Manhattan apartment, I cast a covetous eye on a beautiful midtown loft. This place had a sunny balcony facing the art deco fantasy of the Chrysler Building, and a motormouth roommate who talked like she was on cocaine. I’d almost convinced myself I could handle the roommate, but one thing she said stuck sourly in my head.

She asked me whether I’d be cooking. ‘I can’t stand that curry smell,’ she said.

Let’s put that trope out of its British Raj-induced misery. Indian dishes as a whole are not called curry. They’re called sabzi or khana in Hindi, or just plain Indian food. In Punjabi cooking, curry is one specific dish: a thick yellow sauce made with yogurt and garbanzo flour, spiced with turmeric and eaten with rice. Some stir munchies like vadas, chicken or mutton into this base.

Calling all Indian food ‘curry’ is like calling all American food ‘Jello’: it’s nonsensical. If you tell me, ‘Let’s get some curry!’ and then order saag paneer, I’m going to laugh at you. Loudly.

Is this just semantic quibbling, when cheap Indian restaurants themselves perpetuate the corruption? Forget Curry in a Hurry, try ordering a Chinese dish by the wrong name. I did that at the tiny takeout place on the corner and got a stern lecture. ‘That not chow mein,’ the owner said. ‘I make you lo mein.’ Damned if it wasn’t better, just like he said.

Kollektiv, my favorite party night is bringing the Asian Massive sound to DC and nationwide in the next few weeks, touching down in DC for it's third installment @ Bossa Lounge (2463 18th St. NW in Adams Morgan) on Friday, May 27th. Taking place monthly in six cities nationwide, Kollektiv brings together the asian electronic stylings
of some of the key players bringing the Asian noise: Karsh Kale (Six Degrees Records),
Zakhm (Mutiny), DK aka bollygirlNYC (Avaaz/Gen-Om) and Dimmsummer
(Ethnotechno). They will be joined on paint and canvas by DC's own
V:shal Kanwar (Imperfections).

Alef: By popular demand, we’ve posted a page showing all our banners and explaining the references. It’s also linked from the FAQ. Cliff notes for the Mutiny — it’s kitschy goodness.

This is one of my favorites. Dimple Kapadia and Rishi Kapoor have a Scooby-Doo, Daphne-and-Fred thing going on, crossed with a hapless Japanese bystander from Godzilla:

Ba: I know we asked earlier that people link us as ‘(Author) from Sepia Mutiny,’ but yeah, that’s pretty verbose. Just plain ‘Sepia Mutiny’ is fine, thanks.

Apparently these guys are -

Two tribes living on India's Andaman islands may be direct descendents of the earliest modern humans who moved out of Africa 70,000 years ago, scientists reported last week.

...The Great Andamanese and Onge tribes have remained isolated in the Andaman and Nicobar islands for tens of thousands of years. This helped the scientists to search for signs of origin that erase quickly when populations intermix.

...They found the Onge and Great Andamanese -- both Negrito tribes -- resembled the African population more closely than east Asians or the mainland Indian population of today...These tribes still survive as hunter-gatherer communities using primitive tools and living in the jungle.

And, of course, an obligatory "blame it on the Brits" angle -

Their populations have also decreased steadily with about 20 Great Andamanese and 98 Onge surviving today. It is believed that before British colonizers reached the islands in the mid-18th century, the Great Andamanese population numbered over 5,000.

India's most polluted city is full of talk AND action:

Authorities in the Indian city of Calcutta have ordered all vehicles manufactured before 1990 off the roads unless they convert to green fuel...by the end of the year.

"9,587 taxis, 7,464 buses, 6,784 auto rickshaws, 1,164 minibuses and nearly 30,000 goods vehicles" could be affected. Why a ban?

A recent study by the Calcutta-based Chittaranjan Cancer Research Institute and Calcutta University indicated that close to 50% of the city's residents suffer from major respiratory disorders.

Cases of lung cancer are also increasing throughout the city because of the high level of air pollution.

Hear, hear! The first Los Angeles Carrom Open is hereby called to order (via Hollywood Masala):

First Prize $501, Entry Fee: $5 Per Person

11335 East 183rd Street
Cerritos, CA 90703
(562) 865-9892

All preliminary rounds will Start at 10:00 AM on Saturday, June 4, 2005
Quarterfinals, Semi finals and Finals will be on Sunday, June 5, 2005

A striking idea. I have a feeling that ‘Big Middle Finger’ Nooyi and her super-slippery talcum powder have this one in the pocket.

From my much-beloved section on Wikipedia which highlights new articles:

Did you know...Palwankar Baloo was a Dalit (also called Untouchables) who helped break down the Indian caste system with his prowess at cricket?

Another fave line, apposite for this day of good-natured one-upmanship about regional pride:

A Hindu club in Poona challenged the Europeans to a cricket match, creating a dilemma over whether or not to include the obviously talented Baloo in their side. The Brahmins in the Hindu side were against it, but some Telugu members argued for his inclusion...

w00t progressive Southies! ;)

What is a Freshizza? A Fresh-pizza of course. It has the type of hip, cool sounding name that will entice young people with a disposable income to eat it. Right? I mean Mentos were known as “the freshmaker” and they were cool. Will Smith was a nobody until he became the Fresh Prince. The Hindustan Times reports:

Pizza Hut, the world’s largest pizza chain, on Wednesday launched a new product, Freshizza. The launch was marked by an innovative cookery show hosted by the fresh face of Bollywood actor Zayed Khan and food critic Rashmi Uday Singh.

The highlight of the show included a special demonstration of the pizza dough being made fresh at the restaurant in Janpath, New Delhi. The new crust is neither too thick nor too thin. It has delightfully soft texture and uses a uniquely flavoured tomato sauce, Mozzarella cheese, combined with an exciting range of toppings and garnished with orange Cheddar cheese.

Wow. Janpath must have been rocking in an orgy of excitement as that dough was worked over. I can only imagine. Where can I get me some Freshizza? Apparently google.com hasn’t yet heard of it. Neither has the official Pizza Hut website. Folks, I think Delhi has finally arrived as a world-class city, a trend-setter.

It is the result of months of pioneering effort by the Indian and international research and development team. India is the first market to launch this product.”

Holy crap. This is like the Pizza equivalent of the Manhattan Project. I’m glad major Indian news media is covering this.

To those bored with M.I.A. hype, pretend I’m drawing a cloak of invisibility around this post. Pretend it was hidden somewhere far, far away where nobody would ever read it. In other words, my personal blog ;)

First up, Maya Arulpragasam’s dad and album namesake got a few lines in a 1995 book called Tigers of Lanka. The book describes his Sri Lankan escapades after training in explosives in Lebanon (via Nittewa):

One of the first three Tamils to go to Lebanon was Arul Pragasam, alias Arular. He reached Kannady, also in Vavuniya, in 1976 with a view to settle down and establish a base to woo the educated class into joining the EROS… Arular, with his Kannady farm barely 20 miles from Pirabaharan’s hideout, met the LTTE leader several times beginning September 1976. With his degree in engineering and newly-acquired knowledge in Lebanon, Arular passed on to Pirabaharan ideas about making explosives. In turn, Pirabaharan agreed to provide incendiary chemicals to Arular.

Once a LTTE courier carrying nitric acid to the Kannady farm was caught by the police after he could not give credible explanation about his presence in the Vavuniya forest. Arular, who came rushing from Jaffna on hearing about the arrest, told the police that he had ordered the acid to pour it into snake pits. Mercifully, the police were convinced by the explanation and released the courier. But Pirabaharan would not leave any evidence; at the first opportunity he had the police station raided and all documents related to the arrest were taken away…

Second, Turbanhead points us to some shaky handheld video clips of M.I.A. performing at Coachella. Live performances, like drinking, rarely look good in daylight, but Punk Ass Bitch reports that M.I.A. got a rare Coachella encore:

I have continued to read Slate’s dispatches feature this week which is titled “The Monkey God’s Army.” Despite criticism from a few SM readers on some finer points in the article, it has remained an absorbing read, and there are still two installments left. Rather than quote from the article itself (which I urge you to read) I will instead quote from The Fray. The Fray is Slate’s discussion board that is often full of gems. Slate editors recommended this posting from The Fray:

Hanuman is worshipped by a lot of people who have no affiliation with the Dal. The very phrase - Monkey God - sounds awful! Hanuman, happened to be a monkey. He is worshipped for his devotion to Ram. For his supreme love for the right way, regardless of how much pain he would have to bear. Not because he was a monkey. But because of who he was despite being a monkey. There is a very rich tapestry of philosophy and culture - to demean all of that in this manner is disgusting. It shows a complete lack of understanding and sensitivity towards Indian culture.

I have no qualms with being harsh with either the RSS or the Bajrang Dal. But if the KKK had decided to call themselves Jesus’s army, to belittle Jesus would have been as stupid and pointless as belittling Hanuman in this context.

The title reflects a racist insensitive view of Hindiuism and I, for one, would strongly urge Slate to post an apology and a retraction of the title.

Then we find this one which curiously wasn’t recommended by Slate editors:

Obviously, this newspaper editor is an ignorant fool. He doesn’t even know the Vedic Scriptures which flourished in India starting at least some 5,500 years ago, but are actually infinitely prehistorical.

For the education… let me offer some barebone background information. The last “Golden Age” or SatyaYuga, some 4,000,000 years ago, was the Age when dinosaurs also roamed the earth. The Bible also touched on that when it said, “when Men were giants.” (Some species of man were). What you know call the denizens of the “intermediate world,” i.e., animals, plants birds, and the filth-born, also speak the common language on earth, and understood each other. Meaning, an animal can speak to man, and vice versa and understood each other. The personification of the animals, the sky-ranging creatures like the birds, as well as plants were as intelligent as man.

Tatonnement pokes fun at fellow Bengalis, who may just lay claim to being the French of India, Pondicherry be damned:

Q) What do you call three Bengali men?
A) Two Political Parties…

We are actually a race of well-bred intellectuals interested in art, culture and the finer things of life. Gentlemen who watch cricket and… What’s that you say? Dravid is a better captain!?! …

For Bengalis more than other communities, the size of their immediate cohort almost completely determines their behaviour. The average Bengali is a pack animal… The sight of other werewolves is just the spark he needs and Dr. Bruce Bandopadhyay finds himself answering the call of the wild - transforming into a green-skinned monster… laying waste to every heavy vehicle… [the] Bonglomeration… is a sight to behold…

The Bonglomeration has risen in the past to fend of attacks from such savage races as the British and the Punjabis, who made the mistake of underestimating the capacity for violence in the Bengali, thanks probably to impressions formed based on Bengalis they personally knew…  remember that however mild-mannered your Bengali colleague may seem, do not provoke him in the presence of the Bonglomeration. Your life is forfeit if you do…

Here’s one blogger’s reaction to desi American star Indra Nooyi criticizing Dubya’s foreign policy:

America’s Parasites: Parasites feed on their hosts while providing no discernible good in most cases. I can’t think of any other name for folks who enjoy freedom and self-acualization in the United States then turn their back on us — befuddingly, after significant but remunerative sacrifice and challenge that they were FREE not to take.

Translation: there’s ‘them’ and then there’s ‘us.’ Immigrants are ‘them,’ no matter how long they’ve been in the U.S. (nearly 30 years), no matter how educated (Yale), no matter whether they’re U.S. citizens (yes). Never mind that we need them to plug our skilled labor shortage: we’re doing them a favor by letting them in.

This East Indian-American woman is at the top of her game professionally in a country that celebrates women achievers much UNLIKE her country of origin. BUT she is not satisfied! She must disparage the United States for not doing enough to coddle the corrupt, morally and financially bankrupt ‘international community’. Priceless!!!

Archaic usage of ‘East Indian,’ check. Ignorance of India’s female achievers, check. Multiple exclamation points, check. Assumption that she’s a parasitic economic refugee, check. (Nooyi graduated from IIM-Calcutta and worked at Johnson & Johnson India before ascending to CFO of Pepsi.)

Ignoring the substance of her argument to unleash a personal attack on her nationality and gender, check. Translation: uppity immigrant bitch needs to go back to where she came from.

Would he make the same points if Nooyi were an Englishman in New York? Would he make the same points of fellow conservative Arnold Schwarzenegger?

The Open Society Institute, which is part of George Soros’ Foundation, announced its 2004 Fellowship winners last week:

Community Fellowships are awarded to individuals who wish to employ their educational and professional attainments in service to disadvantaged communities. The goals are to encourage public and community service careers, expand the number of mentors and role models available to youth in inner-city neighborhoods, and promote initiatives and entrepreneurship that will empower those communities to increase opportunity and improve the quality of life there.

Specifically, there were community leaders were picked from NYC:

Ten New York City community organizers, activists and leaders working to improve the quality of public life in low-income neighborhoods were awarded Open Society Institute New York City Community Fellowships.

The NYC Community Fellows are working on a range of innovative public interest projects, including the creation of a community-based legal center to aid South Asian immigrants, the establishment of a domestic violence center for refugee and immigrant African women, and a program in Harlem to protect fixed-income seniors facing eviction.

In the romantic comedy Fever Pitch, a Red Sox fanatic named Mr. Sehgal runs a deli and supplies cold cuts for the other fans. Older and bespectacled, he’s treated well and gets one onomatopoetic line, which he still flubs endearingly in an uncle-like way. He doesn’t seem like a professional actor, but Jimmy Fallon gets his name right.

Fever Pitch has the same problem as Kingdom of Heaven — when did they stop casting men and start casting boys? Pretty though they may be, they can’t carry a movie. But Drew’s leaner Barrymore profile is shaping up like Renee Russo, and she still casts charm like few others. The movie’s flat, with no romantic chemistry between the leads. But it’s surprisingly sweet, probably because Mr. About a Boy wrote the book on which it’s based.

The Red Sox may have won last year, but the Yanks just pinched Manchester United. It’s a feat just as improbable, and probably more relevant to Hornby’s memoir about soccer.

SM reader Manoj directed us to Conan O'Brien's 2000 Harvard Commencement Speech. There are two desi references right up front.
First Paragraph:

I'd like to announce up front that I have one goal this afternoon: to be half as funny as tomorrow's Commencement Speaker, Moral Philosopher and Economist, Amartya Sen. Must get more laughs than seminal wage/price theoretician.

I especially miss Harvard Square - it's so unique. No where else in the world will you find a man with a turban wearing a Red Sox jacket and working in a lesbian bookstore. Hey, I'm just glad my dad's working.

The Christian Science Monitor takes an inspiring look at the state of literacy in Kerala. Why are our Mallu friends so damn into their books and education?

At the Janaranjini preschool in the state of Kerala in rural southern India, children aren’t building castles in the sand. Instead, as they sit cross-legged in front of a thin layer of sand, they are learning the fundamentals of reading and math.

Three-year old V. S. Madhav twirls letters of his native Malayalam - the language of Kerala - into the sand with his left forefinger while his classmate, 4-year old Neethu Saji, writes Arabic numerals more quickly than her teacher can call them out.

“I also learned like this. My father also like this,” says N. Revindhran. Mr. Revindhran is a volunteer at the public library that runs this preschool, locally referred to as a kalari. “This is the ancient model [of schooling],” Revindhran explains.

Education in Kerala represents a success story that many nations might wish to emulate.

I had always learned that the high literacy rate in Kerala was directly related to the emphasis that Christian missionaries there had placed on reading. The messages of the Bible are best spread by reading of course. This article cured me of some of my misconceptions.

Female instructors in the Indian city of Bhubaneswar have been ordered to stop dressing like sexy teachers, and start looking more like naughty housewives:

“The unconscious exposure of a body by a lady teacher during teaching could be an object of amusement for male students inside the classroom,” K.C. Satpathy, the principal of DAV Public School, was quoted in The Times of India newspaper as saying. “By wearing an apron, the quality of teaching could improve” ... Women’s groups are outraged. “What does the principal expect? Should women teachers come to classes clad in burqas?” Katuri Mohapatra, a woman’s activist, told The Hindustan Times newspaper. [Reuters/Yahoo!]

A trailer for Jay Chandrasekhar’s next film, “The Dukes of Hazard,” is up at the movie’s official web site.

Direct links to the trailer: High, Medium, Low

Irshad Manji published an interesting discussion on the sanctity of the Quran in response to the "Newsweek Lied, People Died" brouhaha for the uber-left Huffington Post -

Last week, I was interviewed by CNN International about the Quran desecration report - and in particular about the riots in Jalalabad. I said that if the allegations were proven true, then we're dealing with a gratuitous provocation of Muslims. I stand by that answer. But TV doesn't give you the space that a blog does, so now's the time to say something else: Why riot violently over the mistreatment of a Quran? It's not as if one's basic human rights have been transgressed...

...For centuries, Islamic philosophers have been telling the story of the "Satanic Verses." These are verses that the Prophet Muhammad reportedly accepted as authentic entries into the Quran. Later, he realized that these passages deify heathen idols rather than God Himself. So he belatedly rejected the verses, blaming them on a trick played by Satan...

Indra Nooyi - Fortune's most powerful Desi woman in corporate America - gave an address to the Columbia B-School class of '05 which veered pretty far from the standard "the best is yet to come" script -

After beginning her speech with words of praise and recognition for the graduates and their families, Ms. Indra Nooyi began to make the political statement du jour. After talking of her childhood back in India, Ms. Nooyi began to compare the world and its five major continents (excl. Antarctica and Australia) to the human hand. First was Africa - the pinky finger - small and somewhat insignificant but when hurt, the entire hand hurt with it. Next was Asia - the thumb - strong and powerful, yearning to become a bigger player on the world stage. Third was Europe - the index finger - pointing the way. Fourth was South America - the ring finger - the finger which symbolizes love and sensualness. Finally, the US (not Canada mind you) - yes, you guessed it - the middle finger...

EVERY YEAR, somebody makes a fool of him/herself while giving a commencement speech.

How about going to Riyadh and telling them how they're seen? That would be real courage . .

Abuse of trust-- it's not just for Catholics anymore:

A Buddhist monk in Sri Lanka has tried to commit suicide after he was jailed for raping a nine-year-old girl.

Bellana Pannaloka Thero, of the Sri Vimalarama temple in Nugegoda, near Colombo, drank a substance from his pocket shortly after sentencing.

...Monks play a highly influential role in Sri Lanka, whose 19m population is about 70% Buddhist.

The 42-year old insecticide-guzzling perv is in critical condition after his cowardly attempt to avoid spending 20 years in prison.

Apparently the Miss Universe contestant from Denmark, Gitte Hanspal is half-Indian. Does this matter, besides the fact that it proves to the doubters that there are Indians in Denmark? No. I just needed the thinnest of reasons to put this picture up [tip from Pooja Makhijani]. The Miss Universe contest will be on May 31st in Thailand.

Occupation: I am currently working part-time as a student at IBM Software. My job is to assist the sales staff in different areas and on different projects, in order to relieve their workload.

She’s beautiful AND on her way to becoming and IT geek. Oh, and please let’s not forget about Miss India, Amrita Thapar.

Indo-Canadian Filmaker Deepa Mehta has signed on to direct, according to Variety, a new documentary for Canadian Television entitled, "For Crying Out Loud," a film focusing on four women—hailing from India, El Salvador, Nigeria and Canada—who have been victims of domestic violence.

I am glad that Mehta is coming back, especially after the poor show with Bollywood/Hollywood and The Republic of Love, but what I really want to know is, when will Water, the final film in her trilogy (Fire, 1947 Earth) be released? I liked Fire, while a little slow and odd, after Mississippi Masala, it was my first foray into contemporary (non-Bollywood) Indian cinema, and I was enthralled by Mehta's work.

When 1947 Earth was released, not only did I first see Amir Khan as a real actor, I saw that Deepa Mehta had the potential to make a serious impact on international cinema. Earth was a huge improvement on Fire, and I was anxiously awaiting the last installment of the trilogy, Water.

Anyway, a little Google search led me to this article in India Daily which suggests an imminent release.

After causing a spark in a tinderbox, her film Water is finally complete and ready for an early release. With a new cast and new settings, the film will hit theatres in November. "I''m so glad I''ve got it out of my system. Now I feel I could just retire. I''m that satisfied with Water," said the director. The film's rights have been given to NRI entrepreneur Ajay Virmani.

Are you expecting a child soon? Since it’s a well known fact that all Indian kids in the U.S. look alike through college, do your kids a favor and heed the following advice so that they have at least a minor shot at individuality. DO NOT name them Arjun or Maya. The Hindustan Times reports:

Arjun, the warrior-prince of the Mahabharata, and Maya were the most popular names given to baby boys and girls respectively by Indians in the United States.

The name Arjun was given to 247 boys last year, ranking it 741 in the list of 1,000 most popular baby names in the US, compiled by the Department of Social Security Administration.

I now await hate mail from Arjuns and Mayas worldwide. Please, don’t hate the messenger.

I know many of us that write on this website, as well as those who come to read it, get annoyed when western culture tries to exoticize Indians, and especially Indian women. There is more to India than Kama Sutra and Yoga we chide. Well, at the Cannes film festival actress Mallika Sherawat is taking a different approach. India Daily reports:

Mallika wants to show the world that she is Jackie Chan’s seductive Indian Queen ready boast on her skin and voluptuous body.

Embellished with Rs 4.5 crore worth jewellery, actress Mallika Sherawat is all set to dazzle at the Cannes film festival as the ‘Exotic Princess from India’”.

“I will be in Cannes to promote the Jackie Chan flick The Myth, where I enact the role of a princess from India who is rescued and later turns into Chan’s love interest,” said Sherawat.

What is The Myth about?

The Myth (GAING TIN JUEN KEI) is a film being produced by Jackie’s brand new company, Jackie Chan Emperor.

Jackie describes The Myth as totally different from Around the World in 80 Days and New Police Story; it’s more like an Indiana Jones film. In the movie Jackie will reportedly play a Qin Dynasty general and an archeologist. The film, which Jackie says includes a lot of fantasy, is being filmed right now in Shanghai before it moves to Xian, Lanzhou, Guaizhou, Yunnan, and India. A 2005 release date is anticipated.

I ain’t gonna hate. If I had a brand new production company named “Abhi the Emperor” I’d have an “exotic” Indian princess cast opposite of me as well.

Mallika continues:

“The image is going to be classy, elegant, Indian, and yes of course very sexy. I will present myself as the desi exotica,” she said adding the packaging there would be different from the one she presents at home.

Months ago I posted a little history lesson about the Cult of Thugee in India, from which the overused term “Thug” originated. Today Slate.com, in its dispatches, features a look at a modern day Indian thug cult of sorts, which is known as Hanuman the Monkey God’s Army.

One hundred years ago, Dharavi, which is now Asia’s largest slum, was a fishing village at the edge of Mumbai. As the growing city dumped its junk here, the salt plain turned to swampy landfill. Then, from the 1950s, as rural Indians arrived in Mumbai, or Bombay as it was then known, looking for work, they came to Dharavi. Now the teeming slum, which used to be the most marginal of all marginal communities, is right smack in the middle of Greater Mumbai.

Babalu is a clean-cut 27-year-old with a freckle embedded in the white of his right eye who works on the street hawking barrettes. He is also the head of the Lord Ram Unit of the Bajrang Dal, the paramilitary youth wing of the Vishva Hindu Parishad, the religious wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The RSS is a Hindu nationalist organization that has supported a host of unsavory bigots from Adolf Hitler to Nathuram Godse, the man who assassinated Gandhi in 1948. Although the RSS claimed Godse was not a member of the organization at the time of the assassination, this was an attempt to distance the RSS from the scandal.

“As a member of BD, I’m a notorious troublemaker,” Babalu said as he sat at a back table in Venus, a vegetarian restaurant in the slum. The Bajrang Dal, otherwise known as Hanuman the Monkey God’s Army, is extremely violent. They claim to have 1.3 million members throughout India. I’d met Babalu through a lanky community leader who as a teenager had also been a member of the Bajrang Dal. The lanky man had left the organization years earlier because he was disgusted by their violence.

Reading through Slate’s dispatch I couldn’t help but see similarities between this “Army of the Monkey God” and the notorious American prison gang Nuestra Familia.

Does yoga cause demonic possession? That would explain the The Exorcist, which, little-known fact, features an obscure asana called the ‘spinning wheel.’ Beware that Hindoo voodoo (thanks, RC):

“… [yoga is] aimed at transforming human consciousness to experience the Hindu god, which is a false god.” … She also… instructed her students in astral projection, or “stepping outside” of the body, which Laurette says poses a serious spiritual danger. “If there’s nothing in your mind, you’re open to all kinds of deception… I wondered who—or what—came into my body when I ‘stepped out.’ “

Next up: PraiseFu, drunken master style:

She’s developed a prominent presence on the Internet, largely due to her new exercise program, PraiseMoves, which she calls “a Christian alternative to yoga.”

My name is Laurette and I’m a recovering New Ager. This is like abstinence videos from the 1950s:

… her family never suspected this seemingly innocent exercise would open the door to a New Age lifestyle that would affect Laurette for the next 22 years… As an adult, Laurette immersed herself in every New Age and metaphysical practice she came across: chanting, crystals, tarot cards, psychics, channeling spirits.

Let The Eagle soar:

There’s “The Eagle” stretch, where the arms are pulled back to resemble a bird in flight. While students hold this stretch, Laurette reads Isaiah 40:31: “But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles”…

Just the other day, a female friend lamented, “I wish there was a workout that combined the grace of ballet, the balance of yoga, and the thunderosity of my booty.” Exasperated reply: “Woman, please! You need to get your fine ass down to Swerve on Sweetzer and 3rd.”:

Yoga Booty Ballet (1hr) - Reservations Reccomended
60-90 minutes-- Signature class. A hybrid of all the good stuff from ballet--grace, beauty poise, power and lithe lean lovely limbs: the POWER of Yoga. Sun salutes, balancing poses and breathing--enough to bliss you out: the BOOTY aspects of fitness--original moves to enhance your fine muscular ass! Live Drumming as listed. [Swerve]

Can’t make it to L.A.? Buy the videos here, and then join along as we sing, “there’s no fusion like confusion” (with sincere apologies to Irving Berlin’s ghost).

You might not know this, but it is illegal to be gay in India.

While “there is no explicit mention of homosexuality or homophilia in any of the statute books,” in practice Section 377 of the colonial era Indian Penal Code (written in 1860) effectively criminalizes homosexuality by criminalizing gay sex. The Indian government stands by this law, saying

Indian society, by and large, disapproves of homosexuality and justifies it being treated as a criminal offence even when adults indulge in private [BBC]

A recent effort by activist groups to have the law reframed to legalize sex between consenting adults (the law also bans pedophelia and bestiality) failed on technical grounds, with the Delhi High Court saying that third parties have no right to bring such challenges. The Indian Supreme Court is now looking into the matter, but it is unclear what will happen next.

Even though being a lesbian isn’t criminalized by Section 377 (“unnatural acts” are defined by penetration and it is claimed that “Queen Victoria refused to include the lesbianism clause in the law because she could not imagine ‘such a thing existed’”), as with most things desi, it’s still harder to be a woman than a man:

In a largely patriarchal society, lesbians bear the brunt of social ostracisation and the law more than gay men. In many states, lesbians have taken their lives after facing harassment at home and outside.[Many women] …  have been forcibly married off by their parents. When they tell the truth, they are thrown out of their homes by their spouses, parents and relatives.  [BBC]

In one case, the father of a 31 year old teacher kicked her all the way down from the third floor when he learnt of her sexual preference [cite]

StrategyPage offers it's analysis of what the first stages of a war between India and Pakistan might look like -

May 14, 2005: Can India ever fight a war against its nuclear armed neighbor and rival Pakistan without provoking a nuclear holocaust? The Indian Army (IA) thinks it has an answer to this question. Until now the India's doctrine for war against Pakistan consisted of combat divisions advancing across the Rajasthan desert border into Pakistan, eventually cutting off Pakistan's population centers in the north from the only port and economic lifeline of Karachi...

(click quickly! Stratpage's permalinks are notoriously not so permanent)

Interesting reading if you're of a macabre / war-nerd sort. Personally, I'm an optimist and believe that, short of an improbable Pakistani state implosion, a Hamiltonian peace will be the long term outcome between the 2 nations. Of course, the path from here to there is rarely a straight line.

Tyler Cowen @ Marginal Revolution, has the following quote about Indonesia which could just as easily apply to India -

Then Suharto looked at [James] Wolfensohn. "You know, what you regard as corruption in your part of the world, we regard as family values."

That is from Sebastian Mallaby's The World''s Banker: A Story of Failed States, Financial Crises, and the Wealth and Poverty of Nations.

Air India has started international flights to Amritsar from Toronto and Birmingham on a new Delhi-Amritsar-Birmingham-Toronto route. Given that 50% of the passengers flying through Delhi’s airport are Punjabis, this should be an improvement in service for those passengers and help boost tourism as well.

The flights will be operated with state-of-the-art, fly-by-wire Boeing 777-222 ER aircraft on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. [webindia]

Sunday’s inaugural flight was flagged off by the federal civil aviation minister, Praful Patel, and Punjab’s chief minister, Capt Amarinder Singh. To handle the increased air traffic, the airport at Amritsar is being given a $15m makeover which includes a new terminal building and modern landing aids. [BBC]

This is just the first step. These flights will be upgraded to daily in the upcoming months and additional flights from Amritsar to the Gulf and other western countries are planned.

Air India isn’t the only airline increasing its flights through Rajasansi Airport; everybody wants a piece of the NRI action. In 8 years, the number of flights has increased from 3 to 56 per week:

Model and former Penthouse “Pet of the Year” Sunny Leone will make her long-awaited acting debut in a self-titled movie produced by Vivid, a powerhouse in the adult entertainment industry:

Leone, 23, is the first performer of Indian descent (her parents were born in the Indian state of Punjab) to become a Vivid Girl ... “I wanted to sign with a company that would really help me advance, so I chose Vivid to help me take this big step in my life because you only get one chance to make a debut,” Leone said. “For the past six months I’ve been working on my Website, www.sunnyleone.com, and I’ve come to realize that it’s time for me to start acting.” [AVN]

The video is due to hit shelves at the end of the year, which means our Christmas stockings might finally yield something worth keeping (hint, hint).

Here’s a crude parody of Indian TV by Jay Leno’s Tonight Show (air date unknown). This is a purposely lame clip — its sin is its artlessness. Two of the cast members are wearing brownface, and the accents and turbans are all wrong. ‘Sanjay Leno’ isn’t wearing a turban, he’s wearing a helmet from the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa María. The white guy with his ears exposed is wearing Smurfette’s cap, not a patka. Wajid, the actor playing the Kevin Eubanks-like sidekick, isn’t bad, but then he doesn’t have to make a cultural stretch. Watch the clip.

You know what’s happening — some people are nostalgic for Peter Sellers. They prefer the crappy approximation of desi culture they grew up with rather than the real thing. The Americana which relies on mocking India badly (calling Apu Nahasapeemapeemapetilon) has, over time, become comfort food. No wonder the original title of Goodness Gracious Me was Peter Sellers is Dead.

Yeah, yeah, we all love The Simpsons. Does anyone remember when it first came out? Heh, heh… hey, wait, that shopkeeper with the long, fake last name, limited social intelligence and shit-eating grin, that wasn’t cool. Like a cancer survivor missing his tumor, like an East German missing the Wall, every poison, once custom, is remembered with fondness.

… producers were initially concerned about making the character Indian. “We were worried he might be considered an offensive stereotype,” producer Al Jean once said. “But then we did the first read-through, and Hank said, ‘Hello, Mr. Homer,’ with his accent, and it got such a huge laugh; we knew it had to stay.” [Backstage]

You see? It’s ok as long as you can mimic Mr. Birdie Num-Num (or as long as it’s funny: hoisted by our own petard?)

Overlawyered reports -

The Lost Coast Brewery in Humboldt, Calif. says it will take off the shelves its Indica India Pale Ale, whose label currently depicts the Indian elephant-god Ganesh "holding a beer in one of his four hands, and another in his trunk". Although brewery co-owner Barbara Groom said her Hindu friends don't mind the label, a California man named Brij Dhir sued the brewery, along with other defendants such as the Safeway supermarket chain, claiming that it is offensive and intimidates Hindus from practicing their religion. "Dhir seeks at least $25,000 and his lawsuit mentions that $1 billion would be appropriate to compensate Hindus around the world." "It's a hate crime", Dhir told the Contra Costa Times.

Thanks to Ennis for the pict pointer!

The Air Sahara magnate, Subrata Roy, has apparently fallen ill and disappeared from public view:

One [rumor] says that an entire floor of a super deluxe hotel was recently bought by Sahara in Mumbai (Bombay) and converted into a make shift hospital… the blood pressure of the Sahara boss has fluctuated frequently… He said the Sahara chief was now leading a much more disciplined and orderly life - even doing yoga and regular exercises…

Roy has Mughal tendencies:

He has a fleet of private jets and helicopters and one of his mansions is modelled on the White House. Another residence - located in a private city he has built at the cost of tens of millions of dollars - is a replica of Buckingham Palace.

He commands a swarm of worker bees which is almost as large as the standing army of the United States and almost three times as large as IBM:

… [with] 900,000 employees - Sahara is India’s biggest private sector employer…

The rumor mill has reached Jacksonesque proportions with a petition of habeas corpus filed:

A habeas corpus petition, claiming that Sahara group Chairman Subrata Roy had been kept in ‘illegal detention’ by his wife and some other senior officers of the company, was filed with the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court on Monday.

Other rumors:

According to Sahara group insiders, Roy was resting in the Sahara group’s Amby Valley - a 10,000-acre resort-style getaway - a few hours drive from Mumbai.

Maybe Roy’s chillin’ with Amby Valley fans Michael Douglas and Christina Aguilera. Billionaire disappears into private valley — could it be Galt’s Gulch?

Blinkey the death tank, the preferred steed of Lt. Neil Prakash, took friendly fire outside Fallujah in November:

A round exploded 50 meters in front of our front slope. “HOLY SHIT! BACK UP BACK UP BACK UP!!!!!. JUST GO GO GO!!!!!” The concussion knocked the air out of my lungs. I felt the soft punch of the air on my face. I didn’t know if more rounds were coming in but the effective kill radius of a 155mm artillery round is 50 meters. And if it was a V/T round (variable time), then it would detonate right above our heads and liquefy us…

The whole back left side of the tank exploded. Grey. Black. Smoke. Dust. Sand. It all happened so fast. I see Langford sitting up on the turret with his legs dangling in the hatch like normal. But against a wall of debris at his back. The image is fleeting. He either fell or got blown forward and down into his hole. Langford and I both fell into our hatches at the same time. My seat went into my back as I looked up at the sky through my hatch…

… where we had just been, my left track was laying out in all of its glory. Broken. With only the right side of track on, the tank could only turn left…like being in a rowboat with just your right oar.

Luckily, Prakash survived to deliver a can of whoop-ass to whomever was calling artillery.

Update: It was an anti-tank mine, not artillery.

Dimly sensing through his/her reptilian sub-brain that Greg Gutfeld’s contribution to the Huffington Post wasn’t offensive enough, someone doing a parody of that site took it even further:

Keep the curry and coffee flowing and I’ll get right on it. — Kumar…

“damn i spilled curry in the server…”

Have you withheld curry from them, too?

Because who’s M. Night anyway except another one of those curry-eaters with long last names who all look the same.

As for the original post, Om Malik says, ‘Huffington Post: Now promoting culturally insensitive racist pigs.’

Update: In Saturday’s update, the hilarity keeps coming:

I have no idea how that IED [roadside bomb] ended up in my backpack… — Kumar

Because desis and Arabs are the same, brown people from that-thar region who need to be killed.

The earworm-inducing classic Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge just completed its 500th week of showings in India (thanks, Ennis):

Bombay audiences are some of the toughest in the world, and a bad movie can be pulled before the end of opening weekend. Most films bloom for a week or two and disappear. But “Dilwale” has become a Bombay institution, a perfect masala of location, entertainment, and low price. Young men and women, but mostly young men in their untucked white shirts, wait every morning outside the cinema. The box office sells balcony tickets - the choicest seats - for 15 rupees… On busy weekends, the 1,000-seat theater sells out with visiting families… The audience snuggles down in the dark, ready to make jokes, applaud the hero’s arrival, and urge the lovers to “Kiss! Kiss!”

I’m surprised they don’t throw rice. Desi film audiences apparently share a geeky obsessiveness with fans of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Star Wars. It’s not surprising, really. All three genres are high camp.

Photos of ornate trucks in Pakistan (via CSF). Also, an Om-ified Padmini auto (via Neha). The desi aesthetic: sometimes Gaudí, sometimes just gaudy. Horn Please.

The Huffington Post, a recently launched group blog aimed at the B-list starfucker demographic, hosts a bizarre post by U.K. Maxim editor Greg Gutfeld. It appears to be something about a party in Delhi, or perhaps a dream sequence conceived in an opium-induced stupor:

Things are still going nuts at Alaknanda Jayagopal’s house. Aparjita and Agilah broke into the liquor cabinet, and Gaurika, Fulmala, Heenfu and Indrani started a dance party in the garage. Remember Crystal Water’s “Gypsy Woman?” Well, Dishwari, Fazeela (and her sister, Devapriya) do. They are kicking it, live. Dishwari is also playing truth or dare with Anvita, who dared Deepika to actually swallow a live chicken. Deepika isn’t even speaking to Gangika. Totally off the hook. [The Huffington Post]

If anyone can speak Gutfeldese, please decipher this for us. Winner gets the pride of proving they’re at least as smart as an editor of Maxim. Losers must live with the shame of having read the The Huffington Post.

By now, everyone’s probably heard about Abhi’s illustrious career as astronaut in training, scientist, mountaineer, pilot, blogger and all-round stud. But what most people don’t know is that he descends from a long line of adventurers of all stripes.

I present to you the Tao of Abhi.

If I tell a white man to go back where the came from, will he have to travel to Africa via India?

A team of geneticists ... conclude that there was only one migration of modern humans out of Africa - that it took a southern route to India, Southeast Asia and Australasia ... because the mitochondrial lineages of everyone outside Africa converge at the same time to the same common ancestors ... people from the southern migration, probably in India, must have struck inland to reach the Levant, and later Europe, the geneticists say. [NYT]

A commenter on Soul Strut’s message boards spots M.I.A.’s D.J. lover, Diplo, showing off his nose-picking thumb prior to her performance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”

My cruel friends like to tease me. They tell me that by the time I become an astronaut they will be able to buy the ticket for the seat next to me. Bastards. They might be right. Space tourism, though still in its infancy, is full of possibilities. Now and Indian-American entrepreneur from Chicago is trying to get in on the action. From the Hindustan Times:

Chirinjeev Kathuria, the irrepressible Indian-American serial entrepreneur from Chicago, is returning to his first love - commercial space travel.

Kathuria, who some years ago, co-founded MirCorps, a Russian partnered company that sent American businessman Dennis Tito to space April 4, 2000, is partnering with Canadian Arrow to form a new Canadian corporation called PlanetSpace.

“We are interested in making this a profitable business. I am more interested in getting applause form Wall Street rather than from jet propulsion labs,” said Kathuria who could not become an astronaut as a teenager because he wore glasses.

“The fact is I’ve always wanted to make commercial space travel a reality for the everyday person, and to create a business to make a company profitable.

Apparently I’m not the only one who dreams of space AND politics though. Kathuria is quite ambitious. Googling him led me here. On April 15th Kathuria announced his bid for Lieutenant Governor of Illinois (in 2006).

A couple quick notes for SF-based Mutineers -

• MIA will be playing a sold out show @ The Independent theater in downtown SF this Friday night (May 13) followed by a show at the Fillmore on Sat (tix still available?). If you go, drop us a note @ the tipline with your review and/or cameraphone picts.

• Geek mutineers take note -- Tiecon takes place this weekend down in Santa Clara. Registration is still open. The annual conference afterparty is @ Monte Carlo in Mountain View starting @ 830pm on Friday. There's a guestlist and this stuff has been packed to the gills in years past. I guess if you couldn't get tix to M.I.A., partying up (or standing in line) with a few hundred desi engineers / entrepreneurs is some sort of a consolation prize.

• Finally, a certain mutineer will be celebrating a b-day w/ some friends @ Roe / Prive in downtown SF, this Sat night starting around 10ish. Come by and say hello. MIA - if you're reading this, you're more than welcome to drop by after your Fillmore gig.

Now here are a group of guys who've set out on a rather formidable task -

Here we catalog plagiarism and forgotten inspirations in the Indian movie industry.

Bollywood, India's movie industry, churns out over 800 flicks a year. But with all those numbers it's hard for them to keep up with the creative work. So a lot of movies turn out to be 'inspired by' movies from all over, especially Hollywood. And at the rate they are going with good and hit movies, very soon we'll be seeing a copy of "Plan 9 from Outer Space".

Therefore to keep ourselves, and you people of course, up-to-date with this ever increasing theme, script, scene and music stealing - or borrowing - trend in Bollywood, we have created BollyCat.com. Help us catalog Bollywood's acts of shame!

The plot summaries & commentary are quick, witty reads - for ex. Kaante / Reservoir Dogs and Hum Kaun Hai / The Others.

I dug around, however, and couldn't find my personal favorite - Indian Superman - notable because it didn't restrict itself to merely copying the storyline, music, and costuming but went one better and directly spliced in the special FX footage itself. Bollywood sure knows how to economize.

For the curious, Manish recently pointed me at a clip of this landmark film available on the web where Darmendra saves a planeload of 70s-clad desi's from tuxedo-clad hijackers.

Inspired by the stellar reporting of The Times of India. Shine on, you crazy hacks.

India’s National Defense Academy complains that it’s frequently harassed by a gang of no-good monkeys:

It says the langur monkeys are disrupting training exercises, attacking cadets, vandalising equipment and ripping up plants ... Officials want the monkeys tranquillised, sterilised and released back into the wild ... But the tender has angered forestry officials who say the academy’s jungle location gives monkeys the right to roam. [Ananova]

They still give rifles to Indian army cadets, right? This problem could easily solve itself with a little, ahem, target practice. If they get any static from forestry officials, the cadets can just claim the monkeys were found to be enemy combatants fighting for Pakistan. Then instead of getting a rebuke, they’ll be honored with a ticker tape parade. And there you have another problem solved for the better with firearms. When will monkeys learn?

DNSI links to an article that says that the Jersey Guys’ advertisers are starting to pull out:

The Star-Ledger (NJ) is reporting that Cingular Wireless and Hyundai Motor America have pulled advertising from WKXW-FM. The station has been embroiled in controversy almost immediately after hosts of the station’s “The Jersey Guys” program, Craig Carton and Ray Rossi, offered racist and offensive commentary aimed at Asians and Indians.

Blogger Lester Gesteland is also keeping up with the minute by minute.

Quick, who caught my song reference in the title? Niraj forwards us this article from the BBC about Pakistan’s recruitment of female fighter pilots. So hot.

The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) academy has been all-male for more than 55 years - but now it is going through major change.

Women are now allowed to enrol on its aerospace engineering and fighter pilot programmes and are doing rather well.

To the great surprise of many men, some of the female recruits will soon start flying jet-engine planes.

Male cadets are having to come to terms with the fact that masculinity itself is no longer a condition for reaching this prestigious institute.

But can women withstand the forces that maneuvering a fighter plane puts on one’s body, and perform as well as men? Of course. We KNOW they can from years of experience but it is insightful to point to the data.

Extended periods of hard labour and limited caloric intake are common military conditions. Maximum normal acceleration forces during combat have increased from peak averages of 5 g to 9 g. Besides physical strength, air combat manoeuvring requires significant g-tolerance. G tolerances of 102 women and 139 men were subjected to a Standard Medical Evaluation and the G Profiles were compared. Unpaired t-tests revealed that there was no significant difference between the women and men in either relaxed or straining G tolerance. Covariance analysis controlling for differences in tolerance due to age, height, weight, and activity status revealed that the women have marginally lower tolerance; the analysis also identified height as a factor having a strong negative influence on G tolerance, and weight as having a positive influence. When the women were matched only by height to the men in the comparison group, the women’s mean G tolerances were significantly lower than the men’s. On Standard Training G Profiles, 88% of 24 women and 80% of 213 men completed the runs, but this difference was not significant. G tolerances of 47 women were measured on the Medeval Profiles both during and between menses, but no significant differences related to menstruation were found

Basically this means that the best fighter pilots are short and stocky with a lot of muscle, because this body type tends not to pass out as easily when the blood get sucked from the brain. You want to minimize the distance between the heart and the brain. Without the benefit of a G-suit I’ve even become light headed even at 2.5-3 Gs.

We’ve all been there before. Maybe she turned you down because you weren’t wealthy. Perhaps your career wasn’t prestigious enough. Or it could have been something entirely materialistic, like the fact that you drive a red 1980 Datsun 210, which is a fine automobile, dammit. Be grateful, because it could be worse — she could have turned you down because of a lack of water:

An acute water shortage in central India has made it tough for men of one village to find wives, because families are reluctant to condemn their daughters to a life of hardship ... “In rural India, it is the duty of women to fetch water. When people come to know that their daughter will have to trudge several miles to fetch a couple of pots of water after marriage, which parent will agree?” the (Economic Times) quoted one sociologist as saying. [Reuters/Yahoo!]

A new biography argues that the British commander who ordered the Jallianwala Bagh massacre on Vaisakhi day, 1919, was every bit as sadistic as reputed. Nigel Colletts’ damning take on General Reginald Dyer is rightly called The Butcher of Amritsar (via Amardeep Singh):

… Indians… were also incensed by the General’s notorious “crawling order.” In the street where a female missionary had been left for dead, Dyer decreed that between 6am and 8pm Indians could only proceed on their bellies and elbows and were to be beaten if they raised a buttock… a series of outrages… ensured that the indigenous elite would seek fulfilment in a government of their own race… [the book] helps retire the notion that the end of the Raj was anything but a good thing.

Surprisingly, Dyer’s instruments of butchery were desi soldiers from remote areas, not Brits. (The U.S. has pursued a similar strategy by using Kurdish soldiers in Sunni areas in Iraq). You’ve got to wonder what the hell Dyer’s soldiers were thinking as they methodically murdered their countrymen with manual rifles:

He chose from the troops at his disposal those he thought would harbour the least compunctions in shooting unarmed Punjabi civilians: the Nepalese Gurkhas and the Baluch from the fringes of far-off Sind… His “horrible, bloody duty”, as he called it, consisted of ordering his soldiers to open fire without warning on a peaceful crowd in an enclosed public square. The General directed proceedings from the front, pointing out targets his troops had missed, and they kept shooting until they had only enough ammunition left to defend themselves on their way back to base. While Dyer made his escape, a curfew ensured that the wounded were left to linger until the following morning without treatment… nearly 400 had been killed, including 41 children and a six-week-old baby, and around 1,000 injured.

I thought that it would be a good idea to take a quick look at politics in the land of crumpets and soccer hooligans. Unless you’ve been living under a rock you are probably aware that England held parliamentary elections last week. How did South Asians fare? IACFPA reports:

Seven of the eight sitting members of Parliament (MPs) –– all of them from the Labour Party –– were re-elected in the British general election on May 6, while one, a Liberal Democrat, lost his seat. But that loss was compensated by the victory of a debutant Asian MP on a Conservative Party ticket.

Two of the winners, veteran Asian-origin Labour Party MPs on May 6 celebrated their victories and said they would continue to represent India’s interests in the House of Commons.

Is that being reported correctly? They will continue to represent India’s interests? That seems like a rather lame statement.

Speaking to Indo-Asian News Service, Khabra and Vaz exuded confidence and pledged support to India. “I would very much hope that the government will treat India on par with China,” Khabra said. “Gordon Brown (Chancellor of the Exchequer) has already shown his interest in China. I hope there will be further interest by the Government in India, which is emerging as a major global economic and trading power.”

It seems to me that South Asians elected to England’s parliament should be concerned FIRST with issues facing South Asians in England. I understand that they were speaking to an India media outlet, but sound-bites like that get recycled out of context. Evidence of divided interests are exactly what the conservatives there use to stoke xenophobia. Sunny Hundal, founder of Asians in the Media, fills us in on some of the issues facing South Asians in England:

At 5am last Friday I staggered out of BBC White City, satisfied once most of the election results had been announced, yet saddened by the political campaign.

This has been an election defined by one issue other than Iraq - the continual attacks on immigrants and asylum seekers by the Conservatives. It is also a stark reminder that despite all the talk of Asians making it in business and media, we are remarkably powerless when it comes to politics.

The Washington Post features a story on the shifting strategy of large brokerage houses to recruit minority investors, particularly from amongst the South Asian an Hispanic communities (where they see the most opportunity):

A handful of well-dressed professionals gathered in a gallery at Christie’s auction house here the other day to listen to a South Asian art expert discuss works soon to go on sale, including several by Maqbool Fida Husain, considered India’s Picasso.

No one in the crowd planned to buy any art. In fact, few even cared about it. They just wanted to sound smart at a cocktail reception later in the evening.

The Christie’s event provides a snapshot of Merrill’s aggressive effort, replicated to varying degrees among Wall Street firms, to harness demographic shifts in American wealth.

The Merrill effort, headed by three-time cancer survivor and former star financial adviser Subha V. Barry, has so far focused on wealthy South-Asian Americans and Latinos in a handful of big cities, including the District…

According to the article the sudden shift in strategy is tied to the fact that as baby boomers retire they will only be withdrawing from their investments. Thus, Merrill is targeting South Asians because, “25 percent of South-Asian Americans earn more than $100,000, far more than the average.”

Yesterday, Ennis reported that NPR had featured yet another story on hot chocolate MIA. A few of us wondered about the identity of someone mentioned in the "teaser" for today's story, "the man who helped to spark the MIA Buzz."

Let me kill your non-existent suspense: it's Diplo, the 26-year old producer/turntablist out of Philly, whom MIA apparently "fancied". ;)

Here are my futile attempts at transcribing NPR as fast as I can (clip here):

Maya called last year and asked (Diplo) if he would produce a cut for her debut record...he wound up producing two tracks for the album and they started dating.

From the baile funk-consumed DJ's mouth, about the mixtape "Piracy funds Terrorism, Vol. 1", which started it all:

"This is me and Maya, two artists doing it from the street, we didn't have like her manager with a bright idea, her label with a bright idea...this is purely, like, in the hands of the artist which is where it should be anyway. It's like the perfect music because it's everything, you know?"

Yup, I know. ;)

Apul posted about a satirical article by The Spoof where Aishwarya was supposedly going on Jerry Springer to wrestle a woman over a mullet. And the infamous Times of India reported that same story as straight news! Hilarious!

Aishwarya Rai is slated to appear in a special version of the American show ‘Jerry Springer: Too Hot For TV’ episode in which she will contest with a 380 pound woman. Simone Sheffield, manager to Aishwarya Rai, said, “Miss Rai would be appearing on a special version of ‘Jerry Springer: Too Hot For TV’ episode where the beautiful actress will fight with a 380 pound woman in a trailer over some guy with a mullet, no teeth, and a 7th grade education…”

[In Blind Date] Aishwarya will date Lorenzo - a former stripper who… wants to form a love connection and score on the first date.

And then the ToI reporter felt compelled, compelled, to add a topping of snippiness and whipped cream to what s/he believes to be an actual story:

We’ll just have to see how far he gets with Aishwarya.

The reporter virtually defines the phrase ‘irony-challenged.’ Great Bong has me rolling…

Now let’s consider the TOI staffer who wrote this. He stumbles across an article in a webzine called “spoof.com”. No warning bells ring. Evidently he does not know what “spoof” means. Nor does he want to find out… Does TOI have an editor or do correspondents just barf anything they want to?

Previous posts: 1, 2, 3, 4

Update: The reporter with the Times byline, Soumya Menon, disclaims any connection with the story. Dal mein kuch kala hai…

Update 2: The Times pulled the story from its site. Cached copy here.

Update 3: A commenter on CSF says, ‘She [the reporter] has quit ToI but I do not know if it is related to this incident.’

35-year old Nusrat Parsa died in Canada, a few hours after being involved in a fight which lead to a deadly fall down the stairs.

Parsa was approached by fans outside his hotel after the performance at Vancouver's Queen Elizabeth Theatre and scuffles broke out, police said.

The singer is reported to have fallen downstairs after being punched.

He sustained head injuries and died in hospital a few hours later. A man has been arrested in connection with the incident late on Sunday.

...Mr Parsa's brother, Najib, told the BBC the attack followed trouble at the concert, when some in the audience called for faster, livelier songs.

A singer from childhood on, Parsa recorded a total of ten albums; he had studied music in India.

Wow, the folks at WaPo must love sharing my city with a stellar pub like the The Moonie Times...

Parliament in Pakistan is urging the government to seek an apology from The Washington Times newspaper over a cartoon that depicts Pakistan as a dog.

The cartoon shows a US soldier patting a dog holding Libyan al-Qaeda suspect Abu Faraj al-Libbi who was recently arrested in Pakistan.

"Good boy... now go find Bin Laden," the soldier urges the dog.

Cartoonist Bill Garner says he meant no offence and the misunderstanding was caused by a "cultural gap."

..."We are disgusted with the insensitivity of the editors of the Washington Times," Pakistan's charge de affaires in Washington, Mohammed Sadiq said on May 6, the day the cartoon appeared.

via the Beeb.

Photos of the Life Isn’t All Ha Ha Hee Hee three-part TV series are now up (thanks, Sapna). The first part will be broadcast in the UK tonight, lucky sods.

Here’s a roundup of the characters: the author’s voice Sunita, played by… the author. (Nobody said Meera Syal was big on subtlety.) Her husband Akaash, played by… her husband Sanjeev Bhaskar. The bad girl Tania, played by Moroccan-Indian actress Laila Rouass. The naïf Chila, played by Queen of Naboo Ayesha Dharker. And the playa from the Himalaya Deepak, played by Ace Bhatti. That cast reads like the Bombay Dreams unemployment list.

Watch the clip of Tania getting hassled by clucking aunties. It’s pretty choppy — can’t the Beeb afford bandwidth these days?

Previous posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

A couple of months ago, I had a delicious lunch (at Manhattan’s Jaiya Thai, which seems to hold a monopoly on the Thai-food-for-desis market) with a friend who had just been to Pakistan on business. He told me about a company in D.C. which had outsourced its receptionist to Pakistan via videoconferencing. Today, our mutual friend Mitra Kalita published the story in the Washington Post:

In a chic downtown lobby across the street from the Old Executive Office Building, Saadia Musa answers phones, orders sandwiches and lets in the FedEx guy. And she does it all from Karachi, Pakistan.

As receptionist for the Resource Group, Musa greets employees and visitors via a flat screen hanging on the lobby’s wall. Although they are nine hours behind and nearly 7,500 miles away, her U.S.-based bosses rely on her to keep order during the traffic of calls and meetings…

She turns the camera — which is usually focused on her face — to offer a view of her surroundings in Karachi: a lounge, a cafeteria, a pool table… Just then, a phone call interrupts her. It is 1:15 a.m. where Musa sits. “Good afternoon,” Musa says brightly. “Thank you for calling the Resource Group.”

Musa went through Stepford Wife-like call center training:

“A smile can be heard,” Musa recited in an interview via her flat screen. She worked as a call-center operator before being promoted to secretary. “Posture can make a difference. A dress code makes a difference.”

I know you are wondering, so let me be clear from the start. This is not an attempt by Disney to win a seat at India’s table. An upcoming movie by director Ron Howard will involve Leonardo DiCaprio and 300 South Asian little people. Yahoo Movies India reports [tip from Kishan Thomas]:

Leonardo DiCaprio, the Titanic hero is to play the lead role of the Hollywood remake of a Malayalam film Albhudhadweep. Prithiviraj played the role in the original version.

The story is about four navy officers Hari (Prithiviraj), Joseph (Jagathy), Jagadish and Indrans being marooned on a remote island after their helicopter crashes in the sea. They reach this island where all men are dwarfs but the women are normal and beautiful. According to the folklore, some local deity has cursed the men who became dwarfs!

About 300 dwarfs have acted in this film. The fantasy fairy tale directed by Vinayan was a slow starter but gained momentum later.

This is some straight-up bulls*it. Don’t you guys see the hidden message here? This is just a plan by “Whitey” (a.k.a. the Man) to rub in the fact that South Asian men are somewhat shorter. They think they can just come to our “island” and take our beautiful women from us. I am totally going to protest this. In the meantime I am trying to decide who makes a better leading man.

Under Wikipedia's current "Selected Anniversaries", a special date with regard to this blog-- May 10, 1857, i.e. the Sepoy Mutiny:

...The Pattern 1853 Enfield (P/53) rifle was introduced into India. Its cartridge was covered by a greased membrane which was supposed to be cut by the teeth before the cartridges were loaded into the rifles. There was a rumour that the membrane was greased by cow or pig fat...The British claimed that they had replaced the cartridges with new ones not made from cow and pig fat and tried to get sepoys to make their own grease from beeswax and vegetable oils but the rumour persisted. The Commander in Chief in India, General George Anson reacted to this crisis by saying, "I'll never give in to their beastly prejudices", and despite the pleas of his junior officers he did not compromise.

...On 9 May, 85 troopers of the 3rd Light Cavalry at Meerut refused to use their cartridges. They were imprisoned, sentenced to ten years of hard labour, and stripped of their uniforms in public. It has been said that the town prostitutes made fun of the manhood of the sepoys during the night and this is what goaded them.

When the 11th and 20th native cavalry of the Bengal Army assembled in Meerut on 10 May, they broke rank and turned on their commanding officers.

...and a Mutiny was born. Read more here.

CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta betrays his roots by giving free, albeit useless, medical advice (“I probably would see a dermatologist”) in a new spot entitled “Melanoma.” Unfortunately, you have to register with CNN to watch the ad, and then fumble around with a clumsy Flash interface.

Bonus: In an ad entitled “Gandhi,” Lou Dobbs pops up as a creepingly lurking, know-it-all, third wheel. No registration required for that one.

Previous post: Gupta engulfed in romance with viewer

People magazine names Vijay Agarwal, an aspiring doctor and founder of a non-profit for underprivileged kids, to it’s annual “Most Beautiful” list (thanks, Karthik R.):

“Beauties on your block,” the magazine headline shouts. “Everyday people whose stunning looks match their big hearts.” “Page 161,” Agarwal says. Agarwal, a sometime model from San Jose, doesn’t mind that his chiseled good looks are what are giving him his 15 minutes of fame. A good friend nominated him for the splash in People. Now he fends off requests for autographs. And remains tight-lipped about whether he is single. [San Jose Mercury News]

Oh sure, he may be handsome, smart and altruistic. But the boy’s so poor, he can’t even afford a shirt and belt.

My favorite radio show, This American Life, had a riveting and humorous, true story this past weekend. It involved a twenty-something Afghani American who only wanted to impress his girlfriend by spray-painting some “frogmen” on the sidewalk outside of her apartment. By the end of it all he was in jail and on several terrorist watch-lists. The story even personally involves Donald Rumsfeld. It sounds dire but it all turns out well in the end. The many twists and turns in the story make it worth every second of its 40 minute recording time.

Coming soon, to the purse of an auntie near you, a hot sauce so hot it could literally kill you:

Ultra-concentrated “16 Million Reserve” is the hottest science can make. The sauce is 30 times hotter than the spiciest pepper and 8,000 times more fiery than Tabasco.

Diners must sign a disclaimer recommending “protective gloves and eye wear” — but even sweating testers in safety gear were blinded by tears for 30 minutes.

Medical experts fear it could kill asthmatics or hospitalise a user who touches a sensitive part of the body afterwards. It is made of pure capsaicin, the chemical that makes peppers “hot”. [UK Sun, via BoingBoing]

Pictured here by the AP, carrying his 11-month-old grandson to the hospital. The 48 pound boy consumes five liters of milk and one kilogram of rice-flour every day, and is believed to suffer from a rare hormonal disorder.

Oliver Wang gave a discerning review of MIA's CD Arular on NPR's Morning Edition, sidestepping the political hype and keeping the spotlight firmly on her music. He's no slouch of a wordsmith either:

"Many music critics have played up her exoticness as she was the love child of Neneh Cherry and Che Guevara or the prodigal daughter of the third world returning home to soundbomb the empire"

The magnate behind Kingfisher beer is launching an airline today which uses part-time models as flight attendants (thanks, Sapna):

Models work as flight attendants on the airline while its planes have seat-back entertainment systems… “We have a brand new fleet of aircraft. We have individual entertainment systems where every single seat has video screen…” India’s newest budget airline operates its first flight on Monday from Mumbai (Bombay) to hi-tech hub Bangalore.

Kingfisher Airlines is following the lead of Hooters Air. I suppose models will be able to shoot a beer commercial, then hop on a plane and get straight to work. They’re saving money, really. I think Van Halen did a video about this once.

As Abhi posted, Amal Dorai of MIT threw a party for time travelers last Saturday. He begged visitors to bring a cure for cancer or some other proof of their travels. Here’s a report from Afua, the Samoan particle physicist-slash-bouncer:

“Two surfer dudes named Bill and Ted showed up claiming to be from the year 1989. I asked them to prove it, but all they said was ‘way!’ and ‘bogus.’ So I threw ‘em out. They yelled ‘Party on, dudes!’ and disappeared into a phone booth.

“A crazy-eyed old man with Van der Graaf hair showed up in a DeLorean. I ejected him, and he peeled out at 88 mph stuffing garbage scraps into a blender.

“Some huge thug showed up in a monster suit. He gave his name as Moore Locke, shrieked loudly and bit someone’s head off.

“A tall, thin man with pointy ears wandered by muttering something about a whale.

“A guy named Spicoli showed up stoned out of his mind. ‘Dude, I’m, like, from 30 seconds in the past,’ he said, adding, ‘huh-huh-huh.’

“So there were no time travelers at the party.”

By the end of the party, the only confirmed time travelers were Dorai’s purple leisure suit and zebra-stripe shirt. No other travelers showed up, so the party was a bust. The MIT boys squabbled over the only female-like creature in the room, a girl from BU who took a wrong turn and got trapped in Morss Hall like a dinosaur surrounded by velociraptors. Thousands of years later, they will find her bones.

As far as I'm concerned, the best day to buy the New York Post is Snarkday Sunday. THAT'S the day when the Post gets extra wacky; weddings are announced and more celebrity photographs than usual are displayed, replete with delightfully rude captions which allow otherwise demanding readers to overlook the nightmarish-lack-of-editing this tabloid embraces, as a way to distinguish itself from big apple-rivals like the Grey Lady and the "Daily Snooze".

Still, let's be honest-- other papers have "Vows" sections and every third magazine and fourth cable channel offers celebrity drivel. So why waste three-quarters-of-a-dollar (or hell, three quarters) on The Post? Simple. NYP goes a step beyond, by allowing you to recall the halcyon days of yore when Chuck Woolery helped hapless singles attempt a "Love Connection" with three potential dates.

Chuck is busy, so the Post's uber-creatively named "Meet Market" feature is what's in control of some New Yorker's social fate. And this week? Oh, my Mutiny-lovers. THIS week (drumroll...er...tabla, please)

The New York Times reports that Jack Abramoff, the same lobbyist whose shady dealings with Congressman Tom Delay have been all over the news recently, has been brokering shady deals for many years:

Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist at the center of a federal corruption investigation, led a Congressional delegation to Pakistan in 1997 but failed to tell the group’s sponsor or the lawmakers that he was a registered lobbyist for the Pakistani government, according to the sponsor and the two House members on the trip.

Lobbyists for foreign governments are required to register with the Justice Department. Disclosure statements filed by Mr. Abramoff and his former firm, Preston Gates & Ellis, show that the firm was retained by Pakistan in May 1995 to lobby to overturn sanctions barring delivery of American weapons to Pakistan if its government continued to pursue a nuclear weapons program. The initial six-month lobbying contract paid the firm a retainer of $165,000, plus expenses. A spokesman for Preston Gates had no comment.

A couple of news items remind us that we’re not that far removed from the days of flattened globes and foppish robes. In Assam, an angry mob does what angry mobs do best — irrational accusations followed by violent consequences:

A Tribal mob in northeastern India lynched and decapitated two women accused of practising witchcraft, threw their bodies into a river and paraded their heads as trophies, police said ... Villagers believed the women “had cast evil spells,” the police official said, and afterwards paraded the heads “as trophies.” Eight people have been arrested over the attack. [The Courier-Mail]

And on the high seas near Bangledesh, government crackdowns have led to a drastic decline in old-school, non-digital piracy:

... the number of attacks has fallen from 58 in 2003 to just 17 in 2004. The (International Maritime Bureau) has praised the Bangladesh authorities, saying that the fall in attacks shows that when governments “are committed to tackling piracy and provide the necessary resources, the attacks would eventually reduce.” [Jane’s]

Desi novelists are renowned for their fantastical tales, so it’s only fitting that a desi was chosen as White House CFO. Gopal Khanna was plucked from obscurity in Minnesota as the Peace Corps CFO and trustee of a Hindu temple to become the latest fiction-spinner for the Executive Office of the President, managing a $750M budget. Three quarters of a bil for an office? That’s a lot of sticky notes.

With kids named Rohun and Rohini (and Hrithik?), he carries on desi parents’ all-consuming attraction to alliteration and risible regard for rhyming rubrics. It’s those damn storytelling genes.

Update: Word on the street is that Khanna has been pressing the flesh, converting D.C. desis to the dark side. The Imperial Guard has put out the Help Wanted sign. Ennis says, ‘Did you hear the rumor that he’s dropping the last two letters of his first name?’ Ah, now I grok the attraction.

Khanna reportedly whipped the Peace Corps’ finances into shape, but I’ve got no idea how he’s going to deal with being a marginalized minority. After all, it can’t be easy being the first fiscal conservative in the administration ;)

Some stories of struggle are so dispiriting, so mismatched in power between attacker and victim, you can barely get through them. This one’s about widespread abuse of Sri Lankan maids in the Middle East:

More than a million Sri Lankans - roughly 1 in every 19 citizens - now work abroad, and nearly 600,000 are housemaids… In Saudi Arabia, the most common destination, they call Sri Lanka “the country of housemaids.”

… 15 to 20 percent of the 100,000 Sri Lankan women who leave each year for the gulf return prematurely, face abuse or nonpayment of salary, or get drawn into illicit people trafficking schemes or prostitution… Hundreds of housemaids have become pregnant, often after rapes, producing children who, until Sri Lanka’s Constitution was recently amended, were stateless because their fathers were foreigners. More than 100 women come home dead each year…

Some of the more horrific stories:

The young scion of the Kuwait house where she worked had repeatedly tried to molest her, finally pushing her to the ground and breaking her wrist… Thangarasa Jeyanthi… had a face as purple and puffy as a plum, eyes swollen shut, burn marks on her body and dried blood still around her ears. The husband and wife she worked for had assaulted her daily… They had cut her with a knife, kicked and stomped on her, tied her hands with rope and denied her food…

For Sri Lankan women, long hair is a source of pride, its absence, a source of shame. Ms. Manilariatne’s employer - her “mama” - had cut boy-short [her] hair…

Angelina Jolie isn’t a big fan of Pakistan’s plans to push U.N. refugee camps back into Afghanistan:

Actress Angelina Jolie, a goodwill ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency, said that Pakistani plans to relocate refugee camps from Pakistan to Afghanistan would not help the Afghans living in them. “I don’t think it is a good idea,” Jolie told reporters at a press conference on Saturday when asked to comment on remarks made by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf about relocating the camps. [AFP/Yahoo!]

Non-existent sources report that Musharraf responded in-kind, saying he didn’t think Jolie’s move from sexy bombshell to sexy homewrecker was all that good of an idea either, but you didn’t see him complaining.

It is a well-known fact in the South Asian community that one of the main reasons desi artists do not do well at the box office or in record stores is because of our community's acceptance of piracy. Why pay full price for something, when you can get a rip-off of the original for half the price, right?

I know there have been some raids on Indian stores in the US, more for pirated dvd's than music, but it seems that the meteoric rise of the British Asian music industry has sparked British law enforcement into action. Last week, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), began raiding Indian stores to try and stop the sale and distribution of the album "Authorised" by DJ Sanj which was released on bootleg records but who is signed to EnvyRoma records, mainly for its illegal use of uncleared music samples and vocals, a problem that seems to be a regular occurrence in Asian music—think PMC's Mundian to Bach Ke biting from busta rhymes, who bit from Knight Ryder. That sample was eventually cleared, but most of the samples aren't.

The BPI confirmed it was investigating complaints by some of its members surrounding the remix album, released by Bootleg Recordings and distributed by the Birmingham based Hi Tech Music label. BPI Director of Anti-Piracy David Martin said: "We believe that this remix album uses lengthy samples of our members' sound recordings without permission." He added: "Of course we take every complaint we receive in relation to our members’ rights very seriously, and we are investigating the situation."

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory will star Mr. Soggybottom himself, the little person Deep Roy, playing every single Oompa Loompa at once (via Hollywood Masala). Thank goodness for CGI. I refer not to Roy’s hectic shooting schedule but to the SAG overtime pay scale.

Shelley Conn from the British Asian miniseries Second Generation also has a role, as does a new actor named Ray Verma. Multiple desi roles in a mainstream movie? I smell Brits.

Sometimes being a movie star sucks because you’ve got a lot of down time between seeing all your wardrobe options (no sarcasm intended). What would YOU do with said downtime? Well Kalpen Modi (a.k.a. Kal Penn) does the same thing that I would do were I an actor with down-time (besides using my popularity to hit on girls of course): he blogs as if he were born to. [thanks to Kunal Bhaumik for the tip]

In the glamorous world of filmmaking, I am sitting on the floor in a corner of a bedroom at 1:20 in the morning, waiting to try on wardrobe options. Think about that next time you see an actor on the street, romanticize what we do because you watch too much “Extra” and read too much “US Weekly”.

I shot a scene with my mom and sister (Tabu and Sahira, respectively), and was about to leave for the day. But we haven’t found the right wardrobe for a few upcoming scenes, so Arjun (our energetic and talented costume designer) asked me to hang around for a while. I brought my laptop with me, and was emailing a little bit; then I realized this is probably what they meant when they said they wanted me to do a bit of blogging about how films are made.

April 1, 2005— Hello! Welcome to the Namesake weblog. If you’re reading this, it probably means you’re a fan of the novel, “The Namesake”, and are curious about the film adaptation we’re shooting. This afternoon, I was asked by James (the Fox Searchlight Publicist in charge of “The Namesake”) if I’d be up for keeping a sort of online journal through the shoot, so here goes…

I guess we should give my parents credit for birthing and raising me. Oh, and my guidance counselor, for inciting rebellion in me when she said that the biggest mistake I could ever make would be to “throw your life away by trying to do this whole acting nonsense, Kalpen!”

Wow. That’s what my “counselor” told me about blogging as well. I was a rebel too.

Earlier I posted about Dell opening an office in Mohali, by Chandigarh. This photo of the billionaire proprietor wearing what is either a tika or a large, fleshy mole, standing next to a jolly sardarji who’s Chief Minister of Punjab, is priceless:

It’s about time someone got around to carving the Taj Mahal on to a watermelon (via BoingBoing):

This post is about part-desi actresses who pass for white or Arab in mediocre movies which you’ve actually seen, whose ethnicity you learn later, then feel a really big d’oh! coming on, like Homer Simpson missing the email about an overturned tanker-trailer full of jelly donuts.

Exhibit A: Zuleikha Robinson, the Bedouin love interest in Hidalgo and daughter of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice.

My father is English and my mother is mostly Indian and a little bit of Burmese and a little bit of Arabic… I was born in England and then I moved to San Francisco, then we moved to Malaysia, and Thailand, and Singapore. By this time I was thirteen and I left to go to boarding school in England.

I hope she means Arab. Robinson is currently filming the part of Moushmi, the love interest in The Namesake.

Exhibit B: Rhona Mitra, the New York friend in Sweet Home Alabama (and Lara Croft).

… my dad is from Calcutta. But I’m also part Irish. It’s a confusing heritage. I never know if I want to be running across the fields with no clothes on or sitting in the pub drinking Guinness… we used to nick holy wine from the church and drink it in the potato patch at the back of the school.

Hmm, yes, that’s definitely convent school behavior. Whether Indian or Irish, I can’t say. Here’s a fun quote out of context (thanks, Chandni):

Q: But you have had your breasts enlarged.

A: Yes, but my dad had nothing to do with it… apparently a load of people phoned up the hospital where he works, the next day asking for tits like Rhona Mitra.

Let’s say that you’ve just had a brutal argument with your wife. She’s always giving you the business about something: You spend too much time with your friends...you ought to spend more time with the kids...you need to spend less time with your mistress...and so on. After a fight with his wife, an unemployed man in Uttar Pradesh had just about enough. He flew the coop, and returned two years later with the ultimate retort:

During his absence, he got himself castrated and became a eunuch, earning money by singing and dancing, a common form of employment among India’s ostracized community of eunuchs. “I was always fond of singing and dancing, but felt suffocated in my body as a man,” Nabiullah was quoted as saying. His wife, Shama Parveen, fainted when he returned home late last month... [Reuters/Yahoo!]

Is Yogi Ramesh laughing at you, or laughing with you? Is he mildly demented, or completely insane? Does he actually just end up crying when no one’s looking? Check out the video, and judge for yourself (via Eytomic):

Yogacards: Laughing yoga video clip (Windows Media, 2 MB, 1 min.)

Deepak Chopra’s daughter released a new book, entitled “100 Promises to My Baby”:

As she eagerly awaited the birth of her first child, Mallika Chopra began to craft a unique gift that would express her profound loving commitment to the baby growing inside of her. 100 Promises to My Baby is that gift - one that reflects her deep awareness of the sacred responsibilities of parenthood. Here the author shares the vows she made to help her child - and all children - grow up feeling cherished and secure, look at the world with wonder and curiosity, and learn spiritual values that enrich life and contribute to making the world a better place. [Rodale Store]

The first, and possibly most important, promise:
#1. You’ll never have to patronize any of grandpa’s “spirituality” seminars.

An online publication reports that Aishwarya Rai has scheduled appearances on “Blind Date” and “Jerry Springer.” Unfortunately, it’s most likely all a dirty, dirty lie.

There’s only three days left to check out “Wondertoonel,” an exhibition of paintings by Mark Ryden, at the Pasadena Museum of California Art. One of his many haunting creations includes honest Abe, baby Krishna, and an om flag:

If I wasn’t a broke ass graduate student I’d be on a flight to Boston tomorrow morning. “Why,” you ask? The Guardian says it all [tip from Francis Assisi]:

One of the strongest arguments against time travel is that we are not overrun with curious tourists from the future. A university student in Boston plans to change that, by inviting budding Doctor Whos to the world’s first time traveller convention this weekend.

The organiser, Amal Dorai - a masters student in electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - aims to test the theory of time travel by inviting people from the future to the event.

This is friggin awesome! Dorai’s hypothesis seems to me to parallel the Fermi Paradox which asks why we haven’t been overrun by intelligent beings from elsewhere in the galaxy yet.

“We are doing this as a very low-risk, low-cost way to investigate the possibility of time travel,” he said. “I think the probability they will come is very low, but if it does happen it will one of the biggest events in human history.

“Of course, no time travellers doesn’t rule out the possibility of time travel, they could have just decided not to come to our convention.”

Ahhh…hope. The last refuge of the nerd. Incidentally there was a Star Trek the Next Generation episode years ago where a time traveler from the past pretended he was a time traveler from the future. No word yet on how Dorai plans to handle this possibility. If we were to teach a time traveler from the past too much, he/she could pollute the timeline. It’s enough to make your head spin.

The infamous Ajai Raj is an English major and campus journalist who idolizes Hunter S. Thompson and swears like Cartman. He complains about being busted for pot:

The Pigfucking Establishment had other plans. My roommate and I were awakened at 3 A.M. by two grinning Austin Police Department officers and a greasy-haired fat fuck of an RA who gets his jollies by hanging around with his thumb in his ass until he smells marijuana so he can inform the Justice League in exchange for a free raffle ticket. No shit— as the cops cuffed me for having an ounce of grass, this fucker got a chance to win a free microwave. Or to suck off a sheriff, as far as I know or care.

I was led in handcuffs into a waiting room full of crazy yelling degenerates, wife beaters, whores, thieves, and contemptible crying cunts… my balls were fondled by leering criminals posing as representatives of justice… according to our “justice” system, a straight-A college kid holding a bag of weed is as bad a criminal as a guy who beats his wife and kid. I learned that in Texas, a cop can decide to arrest you for no reason at all and you can sit in jail for 72 hours before you’re even charged with a crime…

The law is sticking all kinds of fingers in my asshole right now, but with a few savvy business deals, I can plow through this shit and come out smelling like roses. Ironic, really—to get out of this drug charge, I’m forced to arrange bigger drug deals than I ever intended to. C’est la vie, non?

Raj worships the original gonzo journalist…

Hunter S. was, and is, my hero. No other writer has had a greater impact on my way of thinking…

The Daily Show covered a UK campaign event, contrasting the fully-scripted campaign commercials Dubya passes off as town halls with the brutal British ones. A desi guy in the audience virtually yelled at the British prime minister about the Iraq war:

That is a lie. You lied to this country, and that’s why we can’t support you the following election.

Wow, actual political commentary instead of rear entry and a hand job. So Ajai Raj continues to squat on his dubious throne.

Watch the video. The back of the hand is at 2:03 in the clip.

Separately, Raj got his mug splashed all over Fox News. Ann Coulter started off gracious:

He asked one of the more intelligent questions from the liberals… I like question and answer… It was no worse than the other ones…

But then her tone turned nasty:

Challenging questions are a little more fun than someone standing up and engaging in Tourette’s syndrome at the mike, but that’s kind of funny too… Who was he trying to persuade with that?

She added sarcastically:

Oh, and he’s attractive… I can’t really tell them apart. Good-lookin’ guy like that doesn’t really stand out in any leftist crowd…

Watch the video.

Previous Ajai Raj posts: 1, 2, 3

Yesterday, Robertson told "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" that he didn't believe Hindus or Muslims should serve as either federal judges or members of the President's cabinet:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
... in your book The New World Order you wrote, "'How dare you maintain that those who believe in the Judeo-Christian values are better qualified to govern America than Hindus or Muslims.' My simple answer is, 'yes, they are.'" Does that mean no Hindu and Muslim judges?

PAT ROBERTSON
Right now, I think people who feel that there should be a jihad against America, read what the Islamic people say. They divide the world into two spheres, Dar al Islam Dar al Harb. The Dar al Islam are those who've submitted to Islam, Dar al Harb are those who are in the land of war and they have said in the Koran there's a war against all the infidels. So do you want somebody like that sitting as a judge? I wouldn't. [cite]

Just one little thing stands in Robertson's way. It's called Article VI, Section 3 of the US Constitution:

"no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States"

While he attacks Islam more often, Robertson intensely dislikes Hinduism as well. In 1995 he said Hinduism was demonic, and that Hindus ought not be allowed to enter the United States.

One might see Robertson's decision to block Hindus and Muslims from the judiciary in terms of the importance he places upon it:

On Sunday morning, Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson told TV viewers nation-wide that the threat posed by liberal judges is "probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings." When an incredulous George Stephanopoulos asked if Robertson really believed that these judges posed "the most serious threat America has faced in nearly 400 years of history, more serious than al Qaeda, more serious than Nazi Germany and Japan, more serious than the Civil War?," he responded, "George, I really believe that." [NYT Daily News]

Amitabh Bachchan said on The Charlie Rose Show last week that Bollywood has crazed fans in Africa and Russia:

… very surprisingly… the entire northern belt of Africa. So Morocco, Algeria, Ethiopia, Sudan, down to Egypt… And Russia. Massive. Massive… When I first went to Moscow for the first time, I was received by Russian female fans, who were actually dressed in our Indian dress and wore the bindi and the jewelry and everything, and spoke Hindi… and said that they were going to university to study the language so that they could follow our films. Remarkable.

When I visited Mockba, a young couple I had dinner with proudly opened a video drawer with nearly a hundred Hindi movies filed meticulously.

Ajai Raj, who was arrested after questioning Ann Coulter about her favorite orifice, offers his side of the story in an open letter on Poor Mojo’s Almanac(k) (via Wonkette):

So yes, the Q&A session came around, and it was pathetic. Her slack-jawed fans got up and licked her face so she could pat them on the head--one schmuck offered to be her bodyguard, and she smiled, doubtlessly making a mental note that she wouldn’t touch his nether regions if she were King Midas. Liberal protestors posed well-intentioned but woefully timid questions and got shot down in a hail of ignorant shitfire from the She-Dragon. Standing in line awaiting my turn, I watched her send a moderate Republican, who had questioned the sheer incendiary magnitude of her rhetoric, walk away in tears when she tore him apart for daring to question her. So yes, I saw my “opportunity to say something lewd and offensive.” And I took it. She had just said something about gay marriage, the typical rightwing bullshit spiel that is still convincing people that the Bible is really the Constitution. Knowing that taking the time to say something insightful, specific, or even slightly critical would get me a lame comeback and a ticket back to my seat, I realized that the only way to win this battle was to fight fire with fire. Or bullshit with bullshit. [Poor Mojo’s Almanac(k)]

M.I.A. is now officially overexposed, but this Pitchfork interview is fascinating (via Chapati Mystery). A musician with something real to say: she’s making some PR flack very happy right now. She’s the anti-Anna Kournikova, with a story that’s more substantial than her stage presence.

She highlights the perils of highlights:

I have brown bits in my hair, and my Mom was practically on her knees screaming, “Nooo! You have to dye your hair before you leave the house or I’ll kill myself!” I’d be like, “What are you freaking out about?” and she’d explain the Tamil Tiger girls have been in the jungle for so long that their hair goes brown, and if you walk out like this, you’re going to get shot because people will think you’re a Tamil Tiger girl…”

Why bikes are banned in LTTE-controlled areas of Sri Lanka:

Bicycles are banned, gasoline’s banned, there’s no motor transportation… because they think you can use the inner bicycle tubes to make landmines. They banned rubber bands, so the Tigers apparently used inner tubes to make rubber bands. So they banned the whole bicycle! And that, to a Sri Lankan, is the main mode of transport…

Her dad is a Dylan fan, and terrorist is too crude a label:

When I watch President Bush on the telly going, we need to fight the axis of evil and kill these terrorists by all means necessary, I just go, “Shit, poor Dad.” In the 70s all he wanted to do was be a revolutionary like Bob Dylan. He had idealistic views about changing the world for the better and fighting for people who don’t have a voice— the same thing that Bob Dylan wanted to do. Now, he’s like this straight-up, evil terrorist; a gunned masked man with a semi-automatic ready to take down and behead people. It’s not like that; it’s really not. It’s so much more complex. They’ve made a cartoon character out of a terrorist…

Ajai protests Ann

Police enact heckler ban

For the memories

The Smoking Gun has a mugshot of Ajai Raj (thanks, Mili), who was arrested after asking Ann Coulter why it’s okay for her to use her penis to ass-fuck other women.

Salman Rushdie recently jawboned a NYT reporter for calling his wife a common hustler. Today, that same reporter wrote about India Fashion Week. The good news: Delhi is in the NYT. The bad: Guy Trebay sounds like the condescending love child of Lord Macaulay and Rudyard Kipling:

On one hand there are the neo-minimalists, deploying traditional handicrafts with restraint and confidence. On the other are designers whose response, when presented with a blank slate and access to those same crafts traditions, takes the form of horror vacui. More is more, in other words, with a dollop of too much. For every even marginally subtle designer like Mr. Varma, there are five others whose work looks as if it is destined for a camel fair in Rajasthan…

Earth to Trebay: it’s an ornamented culture. You don’t see people dinging the Chinese for silk mandarin jackets. And when Tamarind goes with an all-beige, Ralph Lauren-meets-Sears comforter theme, some of us see that as a downgrade.

Trebay expands:

“I’m here to see clothes that speak to a larger, more global vision,” said Michael Fink, a buyer for Saks Fifth Avenue. “I keep saying to people: ‘Designers come from abroad, take your fabrics and crafts and present extraordinary clothes. What’s wrong? Why aren’t you doing that here?’ ” Mr. Fink was not alone among those hopefuls who made the trek from the United States or Europe only to find disappointment in collections not yet likely to translate for foreign markets…

Translation: we do Indian clothes better than the Indians. Yes, people, why can’t you rip off your shit for Kmart like we do? You water down your milk, we water down your yoga. You dilute your petrol, we dilute your tunics. By the time we’re done, nobody’ll remember they were ever called anything else. What’s a little bastardized fashion between friends?

But wait, he’s not done yet: