I realized five years ago, when the Congress Party came back into power after everyone had seemingly given them up for dead, that Indian politics is way too complicated to try and predict, especially from the outside.

Still, I wonder if readers have been coming across insightful articles or websites that explain what is happening in individual states or regions of the country, or analyze trends in a useful way. If so, could you put your recommendations in the comments below?

Here are two things I’ve read in the past day that I thought were interesting: the New York Times, on Narendra Modi, and Soutik Biswas, at the BBC, on why the 26/11 terrorist attack in Mumbai is not likely to be a national election issue.

This time around, it seems impossible to read too much into what is happening on any given day. Nor does it seems necessary to pay all that much attention to the to and fro between the Congress Leaders, the BJP leaders, and third front leaders. It doesn’t seem particularly consequential in terms of how people vote. As far as I can tell, there’s nothing remotely similar to the glut of daily tracking polls we had in the U.S. with the elections last year, nor are there websites like 538.com, which synthesized all the polling data coming in. (Are there such polls and websites? Have I simply been missing them?)

It does seem clear that the steady, incremental shift from national to regional politics is continuing in the current election. On the one hand, that is bad, because it means that whatever government comes to power at the center will be inherently weak and coalition-based. On the other hand, that weakness at the center can also be a good thing in terms of maintaining overall stability — not always easy in a country with 1 billion people. Even if a far-right or far-left party comes into power next month, they will not be able to do anything too drastic for fear of losing coalition support.

Second, it seems like “Hindutva” has seemingly lost some of its force as a national issue. The BJP and its allies might still prevail, but they’re playing the “nationalism” card more than the communal card.

Third, caste politics seems to be more prevalent than ever. I find that to be one of the most depressing and deadening things about Indian politics.

Fourth, Varun Gandhi is Ram, Shashi Tharoor is on bail, and Sanjay Dutt’s daughter in New York is pissed at him.

Here are some excerpts related to Pakistan, from President Obama’s 100 day press conference last night:

QUESTION: Can you reassure the American people that, if necessary, America could secure Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and keep it from getting into the Taliban’s hands, or worst-case scenario, even al Qaeda’s hands?

MR. OBAMA: I’m confident that we can make sure that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is secure, primarily, initially, because the Pakistani army, I think, recognizes the hazards of those weapons falling into the wrong hands.

We’ve got strong military-to-military consultation and cooperation.

I am gravely concerned about the situation in Pakistan, not because I think that they’re immediately going to be overrun and the Taliban would take over in Pakistan; more concerned that the civilian government there right now is very fragile and don’t seem to have the capacity to deliver basic services, schools, health care, you know, rule of law, a judicial system that works for the majority of people.

And so as a consequence, it is very difficult for them to gain the support and the — the loyalty of their people. So we need to help Pakistan help Pakistanis. And I think that there’s a recognition, increasingly, on the part of both the civilian government there and the army, that that is their biggest weakness.

On the military side, you’re starting to see some recognition just in the last few days that the obsession with India as the mortal threat to Pakistan has been misguided, and that their biggest threat right now comes internally. And you’re starting to see the Pakistani military take much more seriously the armed threat from militant extremists. (link)

What do people think of this statement? I have a couple of thoughts below.

My two-year old nephew can’t get enough of Lingo the Lion and ever since I watched the DVD “Animals”, I can see why.

One of the offerings from the bilingual publisher Little GuruSkool, “Animals” is what I’d call a Desi equivalent of the immensely popular Baby Einstein series. Combining video footage of the natural world with animated characters, adorable little puppets and Desi babies, and catchy music, it promises to help the diasporic subcontinental parent “introduce their children to the Indian culture in a fun and interactive way.”

Little GuruSkool is a relatively new company, based in Chicago and founded by Pooja Pittie Goel, the mother of a preschooler who “wanted to expose her son to Indian languages, music, art and nature at an early age, but could not find any books or DVDs in the market (either in the US or in India) that were appropriate for pre-schoolers - educational and entertaining at the same time.” When she couldn’t find what she needed in the market place, she decided to create the products (DVDs, audio CDs, and illustrated, high quality board books) herself. The production quality is impressive, and after I finished watching the “Animals” DVD, I couldn’t get the song about “choti choti machliya” (little, tiny fish) out of my head.

If you’re in the market for a gift for that little desi toddler in your life, Little GuruSkool’s line is sure to be a happy discovery for you. It’s a welcome addition to the current offerings of bilingual, multimedia educational lines such as Sonali Herrera’s Meera Masi, Monika Jain’s Kahani, Rashmi Turner’s Global Wonders, and Kavita (Shah) Bafana’s Little Ustaads (Indian classical music classes), all created by moms to fill existing gaps in the Desi educational marketplace. (I certainly did not have any of these options when I was a toddler, and am glad to know my little one will!)

Below the fold: a brief interview with Pooja Pittie Goel for those interested in her story and process.

The South Asian Summit, held this past weekend in D.C., was an amazing experience for which SAALT deserves a great many thanks. The passion present in the room was undoubtedly invigorating to all in attendance. Most importantly, I learned something about the fundamental hurdles many of these South Asian American activists face in the pursuit of their varied causes. I believe that some of these hurdles have solutions that readers of this website (with their varied skills) can help with if only made aware of the challenges. Over the course of the next several months I plan to profile many of the organizations that attended SAALT and solicit from them what their needs are so that some of us can pitch in.

As a blogger residing behind the computer I rarely get to meet first-hand the dedicated activists we often write about. It is the difference between seeing ice cream and tasting it. The folks at this conference breathed their causes and it makes you re-evaluate whether or not you are doing enough in your own life. This really is the time to think and act beyond your immediate sphere.

At the beginning of the conference we were each handed a post-card which we were to self address and hand back to the organizers. The post card asked a single question: “What did the Summit inspire you to do?” The message we wrote was for our own benefit and the post card was to arrive in the mail to remind us of our commitment.

The challenge at the Summit has inspired me to attempt something big and I have started researching and working on a plan. The next time I attend a South Asian summit I would like to be able to say that I did something to move the ball forward, if only by a few yards.

Picture this: You’re a single woman in your early forties who has taken a liking to a handsome twenty-something guy who lives in your apartment building. Hey, if it works for Demi, why not you? So you gather the courage and leave a box of samosas at his door, with a note that says, “Just made a batch and thought you might like a few.”

An hour later, there’s a knock at your door. He’s standing there in shorts and a tank top, looking as studly as ever. “The samosas were great,” he says. “Thank you for thinking of me, Aunty.”

Well, that scenario probably never happened to Shobha Tharoor Srinivasan, but she’s nevertheless peeved about being called “aunty” by people she barely knows, as she states in this month’s Khabar (her piece originally appeared in India Currents, linked below).

Today, the title “aunty” is so overused and misused that it has lost its position and meaning. Indian-American children are taught that every adult female is a potential aunty; many carry this presumption to the conclusion that any adult female older than them can be an aunty. I’m not referring to school children here, but to those I see as adults, the lipsticked and bearded variety, who ought to know better. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have a problem with terms like ammayi, or cheriamma, or edathi, all specific Malayalam words that acknowledge individuals who are close family members and deserve rightful respect in the family’s pecking order. There are equivalent terms in every Indian language: terms like maami, mausi, and didi that all validate close family connections. But amongst English-speaking Indian Americans, the frequent use of “aunty” or “uncle” is more often an example of lazy speech, or a desire to bump the individual in question into the category of doddering older-other, than it is a thoughtful moniker of respect. Therein lies the problem. [Link]

This week Desis will be congregating in the nation’s capitol for SAALT’s South Asian Summit (registration is closed, but tickets still available for the Change Maker Award). Both Abhi and I will be sitting on panels for the summit and we were thinking, why not incorporate a classic Sepia Mutiny meetup into the mix?

So how about it? A ‘Chaat and Chai’ 4-7 pm Sepia Mutiny Meetup on Sunday April 26th? Though D.C. was home way back in the days, I’ve never been to a D.C. meetup, and would be really excited to meet Chocolate City’s mutineers.

What I need from you:

1. RSVP in the comments with your e-mail address if you can make it.

2. Recommendations for the perfect chaat and chai joint for our meetup.

If you’ve never been to a meetup, it’s basically a space where fun is had, friends are made, faces are finally put to handles. It’ll be fun, promise and totally worth the trip to kick it with Mutineers, new and old. Open to bloggers, commenters, lurkers, and the de-lurked. Yes, that means you. Come. Join us.

I went to Coachella on the wrong day it seems. Had I known this trio would be a trio, I would’ve trekked desert-ward one day sooner…(Hat tip to Aziz’s twitter).

I was at Coachella on Sunday and played ‘Spot the Alterna-Desi’ the entire day — critical mass of Browns for the K’Naan set, if that. Did anyone else go to Coachella this weekend and get to see M.I.A. perform on Saturday night? Any other Desis (famous or otherwise) spotted?

Launching today in Los Angeles at the opening night of the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles: The Kahani Movement. A brain child of Dr. Sanjay Gupta (CNN) and Suneel Gupta (Mozilla), the new site “is a social network that aims to capture untold stories from first-generation Indians in the U.S. and provide those stories with a platform to be heard.” But what does that exactly mean? (Hat tip, Chick Pea)

I’m borderline obsessed with the ideas of documenting the history of South Asian Americans, and am completely fascinated with how this project is merging documentary with social networking with user generated content. There is so much potential.

The Kahani Movement…ties the concept of StoryCorps to the technology of Web 2.0 by inspiring Indian Americans to tell stories of their early days in the U.S. from the comfort of their own kitchen tables and then share this content on a newly developed social network.

The project takes a Hollywood 2.0 approach to sharing these stories by motivating young Indian Americans to pick up a camera, interview their parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles, and then post that footage to Kahani’s web platform. The eventual audience for this content is a generation of people who may never have the benefit of a real conversation with their immigrant ancestors. [sajaforum]

I’ve been working on documenting my maternal grandparents’ story, and this is a space where I knew I would have been able to share it…that is if it weren’t an “Indian” space, but a South Asian one. My only critique of the site, which I think is substantial considering how integrated the South Asian American migration and historical experience is.

From Whitehouse.gov we see some pictures from “behind the scenes” at the Summit of the Americas that just ended (thanks for the tip Siddhartha). It looks like Obama is giving some guy named Brian Lara advice on how to swing a cricket bat. I am not sure if his form is right. It might be why Tiger Woods was invited to the White House yesterday. It also looks like Obama’s wicket is wide open. You know what time it is. It is caption contest time. Go at it.

The last few days I have been tweeting about a set of unfortunate circumstances surrounding young Rubina Ali, the young girl that played the child Latika in the movie Slumdog Millionaire. First, a British paper engaged in some investigative reporting and alleged that Ali’s parents were attempting to sell her off for a high bid (in order to buy their way out of the slums or just out of plain greed). Then it appears that Indian police began investigating this serious allegation. Finally today, a vicious cat fight occurred between Ali’s mom and step mom as the poor girl watched on in tears. This is of course a really sad story born from a seemingly happy one. There aren’t a lot of details I can add to this that you can’t simply read in the three articles I linked above. Instead, the focus of this post is in about a single sentence from the third article which caught my eye:

After seeing Munni [the step mother] talking to reporters, Khushi [the biological mother] launched a verbal attack, accusing Munni of using black magic to control Rubina. [Link]

Allegations of witches and witchcraft are not new to India and at least a few times a year the western media highlights them. They also occur quite regularly in the U.S. and all around the world for that matter. It is a phenomenon that spans borders, cultures, and time. A must-read piece at Slate today highlighted two new books (The Enemy Within and The Last Witch of Langenburg: Murder in a German Village) on the subject of witch hunts and why vulnerable women or young girls are most frequently the victims of these sort of hunts which seek to expunge “evils” from within a group.

The allure of witch hunting can grip any of us if we abandon our adherence to reason and evidence. As a tribal, poorly evolved species, we are very vulnerable to believing that we are surrounded by secretive, wicked people who might seem like us at first glance but who are, in fact, conspiring against us—and must be rooted out and destroyed. John Demos explains how this differs from other forms of persecution: “Witch-hunting alone finds the other within its own ranks. The Jew, the black, and the ethnic opposite exist, in some fundamental sense, ‘on the outside.’ … The witch, by contrast, is discovered (and ‘discovery’ is key to the process) inside the host community.”

We know that witch hunts break out most ferociously at times of trauma and stress. There was no concept of child witchcraft in Congo until the war began and 6 million people were killed. Now a broken and terrorized population has turned on its own children in a desperate, futile attempt to find some way to regain control. The first great witch hunt in Europe came after the Black Death killed one-third of the population. The second came between 1580 and 1650, when the climate cooled and crops failed. Similarly, witch hunting erupted in America—on the dirt-tracks of Salem, Mass.—at a time when 10 percent of the colonists were being killed and all lived in constant fear of the American Indians who were trying to defend their civilization from extinction. [Link]

My friend Ankur sent me a Wikipedia link this morning that left me scratching my head…but also gave me a Colbert-esque idea. On Wikipedia there is actually an entry called “List of Indian Americans” which features NOTABLE Indian Americans ONLY. After years of having no objective means by which to quantify success in the Indian American community, we finally have a means! No matter what you achieve in your career, unless your name is on this list your parents can never claim to their friends that their “beta” has succeeded! If your mom is at a party and brags about you to some auntie, said auntie will check Wikipedia on her Iphone and then wag her finger, nah nah nah. Are you on the list dear reader? Probably not loser. But you are in good company as neither am I (an obvious oversight, hmpfff).

So here is what I propose loyal SM readers. I want you to go this page an add an entry for yourself. Yes you Mr. Struggling Artist. All your friends love your art and know you are talented. Go add yourself! Yes you, Ms. Non-Profit worker. You save children in poverty-stricken countries. I think you should add your name as well. Hell, if someone wants to add my name I wouldn’t be opposed to that either. There are no bloggers on the list at all! Oh crap, there are. Anil Dash, Om Malik, and Rahul Mahajan. This is just not right.

For our Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and Sri Lankan American readers, tough beans. You guys don’t even have an entry! The Mexican, Chinese and Irish Americans do though. I guess this means there is nobody notable from your communities. Can someone create a page for you guys please. Parents from these communities need an objective list as well.

A tipster notifies us that Miss Indiana, who appears at the Miss USA pageant that is on NBC tonight, is an Indian American woman by the name of Courtni Shabana Hall (more pictures here):

Courtni Hall, a 5’5” brown eyed brunette, is the 22-year-old daughter of Barbara Hall of Crawfordsville. A senior at Indiana State University, Courtni’s career ambition is to obtain her Masters degree in Communications and to work in the entertainment industry as a television personality. Courtni is a spokesperson for Children’s Hope International and serves as an advocate for adoption, as she was adopted from India at just five months old. Her hobbies include singing, traveling, acting and volunteering as a Spanish tutor. [Link]

Her profile at NBC’s website has a bit more concerning her adoption and a few of her interests:

* Born in Calcutta, India weighing only 2 lbs., 2 oz., she was abandoned at birth, and adopted by U.S. parents and brought to Indiana.
* Working towards getting her pilot’s license.
* Has a beaver, 56 tigers and a pet alligator. [Link]

Mad respect to anyone working toward their pilot’s licence because I appreciate the commitment that takes. However, I am a bit concerned about the 56 tigers and the pet alligator (owning a beaver is probably not as dangerous and I think is fairly common in some parts).

In case you want to “friend” Courtni or become a fan, her FB page is here.

I for one will be tuning in and keeping my fingers crossed for the gorgeous Courtni (who speaks so well), and perhaps I shall follow along in the Twittervesre.

In his weekly internet address Obama announced today that he wanted to make cuts to all the departments in his government and streamline government spending. He also wants to “promote innovation.” Therefore, as one step, he has named Aneesh Chopra as his Chief Technology Officer (start at min 3:50 in the video below):

Aneesh is being pulled from Virginia, courtesy of Obama’s BFF Tim Kaine.

Aneesh Chopra is currently Virginia’s Fourth Secretary of Technology serving Governor Tim Kaine. In this capacity, he leads the Commonwealth’s strategy to effectively leverage technology in government reform, promotes Virginia’s innovation agenda, and fosters technology-related economic development with a special emphasis on entrepreneurship…

Secretary Chopra was awarded the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society’s (HIMSS) 2007 State Leadership Advocacy Award, and was also recently named to Government Technology magazine’s Top 25 in their Doers, Dreamers, and Drivers issue, which recognizes the 25 individuals they believe help set the standard for using technology to improve government. [Link]

It used to be that Indian men working in America, whether citizens, permanent residents or H-1B holders, could go to India and have their pick of a bride. They were considered good catches, the type of fish you don’t throw back in the lake. Not anymore, apparently, according to Shefali Anand of the Wall Street Journal.

Concerned about the flagging U.S. economy, parents of brides are reluctant to betroth their daughters to someone whose job may evaporate. Rahul Tamraker, 32, a consultant in Chicago, learned this firsthand during his fruitless bride search in India. Potential in-laws were worried that “consultant” was another way of saying “unemployed.” One parent wanted to see Tamraker’s income tax return, paying heed to the age-old matchmaking principle: “Good income, good outcome.” Tamraker declined and the marriage talks fizzled.

Poor guy. He’s got a hefty salary, but no bride. Which may be better, of course, than having a hefty bride, but no salary.

Then there’s Vikas Marwaha, a software enginer who’s only 27 and earning more than 80 grand a year.

During a two-week wife-hunting trip to India in December, Mr. Marwaha interviewed 20 potential brides in 10 days. He says several parents asked him, “How has the recession impacted your job?” Mr. Marwaha says he assured them he hadn’t been affected at all, but still he returned to the U.S. brideless. [Link]

Indian engineer: “I went to India for some wife-hunting last month. What did you do?”

American engineer: “I went to Indiana for some deer-hunting.”

Indian: “Really? Did you get one?”

American: “Yes, I got one and mounted it. What about you?”

Indian: “No, I didn’t come close to doing any mounting whatsoever.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

T: Was there an album that really influenced you?

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

T: When did you start performing?

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

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

T: Did he like it?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’m a life-long Democrat, but one aspect of the Democratic party message that has at times bothered me in recent years is the tendency towards protectionism. It was one of the things (among many) that annoyed me about John Kerry’s campaign, and I was somewhat relieved that Obama wielded this axe a bit more lightly during his campaign, at least after Iowa (notice how most of that talk about NAFTA disappeared too?).

During a bad recession with spiralling unemployment, of course, any earlier caution we might have seen from politicians regarding protectionism is going to be in danger. Congressional politicians from both parties are increasingly turning to populist language to ensure their own political survival. And the easiest group to pick on politically in recent years, by both Republicans and Democrats, has been immigrants, since they can’t vote anyway.

As many readers may already be aware, the recent American economic stimulus bill contained explicit language concerning foreign workers in the U.S.:

An African-American friend of mine on Facebook recently jubilantly posted a link to this article about a recently-discovered problem with the BMI Index, a number widely used to determine body fat levels — whether people are underweight, healthy, overweight, or obese.

The BMI index was calculated with reference to caucasian body types. But people from different ethnic backgrounds have bodies that might be constructed slightly differently, so one BMI might not accurately determine everyone’s body fat level. A more direct measure of body fat can be found through Dual X-Ray Absorptiometry (DXA or DEXA), which measures body fat directly, rather than as an index. Here are the basics:

BMI is a formula that estimates a person’s body fat using only his/her weight and height. The result is then used to determine weight categories: 18.5 and below is considered underweight; 18.6 - 24.9 healthy; 25 - 29 overweight and 30+ obese.

“This scale was created years ago and is based on Caucasian men and women,” says Bray, “It doesn’t take into account differences in body composition between genders, race/ethnicity groups, and across the lifespan.” (link)

The good news for African Americans and bad news for Asian Indians is after the jump:

Spoiler Alert (DVR users should avert their eyes): All of a sudden our website traffic doubled in the span of a couple of hours. What the hell is going on I wondered. House M.D. was on earlier tonight and I guess a lot of people switched over to watch since the NCAA final sucked so much. The Fox network has put up an obituary of Dr. Lawrence Kutner, played by actor Kal Penn, online:

Dr. Kutner was born in Freemont, California. Tragedy marred his early life as he lost his parents, Karamchand and Niki Baidwan, who were shot during an armed robbery. After a couple of years in foster care, Julia and Richard Kutner adopted Lawrence. He showed great promise in high school, winning a Westinghouse Science award for an experiment involving dark matter. His adoptive parents mused that he showed a freethinking, inventive streak from a young age.

Kutner received a full scholarship to the University of California at Berkeley and graduated magna cum laude with a degree in Physics. He then attended the University of Tel Aviv Medical School and completed an internship and residency in Sports and Rehabilitation Medicine through the University of Colorado. “He wanted to be a doctor since seeing ‘M.A.S.H.’ as a kid”, said his close friend and colleague Dr. Chris Taub. “I think he modeled himself a little bit after Hawkeye Pierce.”

Kutner’s girlfriend Nicole Brewster remembered that Lawrence, being adopted and of Indian ancestry, always felt like an outsider. But she said he didn’t resent it - instead, he felt the experience gained him added insight and perspective. [Link]

There is the possibility that this is all a dream and that House will wake up tomorrow to find Kutner alive (maybe in the hospital’s shower). Hey, at least he wasn’t killed by a black smoke monster. Let’s see what @kal_penn has to say about his future plans tomorrow.

UPDATE: Penn has announced his plans. Click “Read More” to learn what comes next for him

With regards to our website’s new design, the single biggest gripe heard from many (including from within the bunker) has to do with the naked header space. Where the banners at? People miss the variety and the colors previously found at the top. Why is the space so darn naked? Well, before answering that question I would like to explain a bit of the philosophy behind the site design. We have tried to make it a more community driven while still maintaining our editorial rights. When the news column was hidden away on its own separate tab it wasn’t being utilized to its maximum potential. Already, since our launch last week, I have been very happy with the quality of news links posted in the right hand column. People tend to step up their game and participate more when their submissions get more face time. We will continue to delete junk and spam from that column and the features (including comments) will soon be working. Likewise, the incorporation of Twitter allows us to communicate with and receive relevant tips from a much larger community.

And that brings us back to the missing banners. There was always a plan.

We are looking for submissions from the Sepia Mutiny community. We want artwork, several original designs, to adorn the top of our website. As with the banners, we hope to rotate the designs. Notice I said “artwork” and not just hastily designed graphics. We want you to wow us and blow SM readers away. This means you have to be pretty darn good at using Photoshop, Gimp, or the equivalent. Instructions follow below the fold.