February 14, 2008

Young Padawan

Star Wars fans were excited to learn today that a new animated film based on the the Star Wars Universe will be released this August:

Star Wars: The Clone Wars makes its theatrical debut as an all-new, computer-generated feature film in August 2008, followed by a television series in the fall.

The new adventures in a galaxy far, far away apparently take place between the second and third Star Wars prequel films, similar to the Clone War series of the same name that ran between 2003 and 2005. Returning characters include Anakin Skywalker - who later becomes Darth Vader - along with Obi-Wan Kenobi and Padme Amidala. New heroes also join to battle familiar villains from the Star Wars prequels, such as Darth Sidious, Count Dooku, and General Grievous.

“I felt there were a lot more Star Wars stories left to tell,” said George Lucas, Star Wars creator and executive producer of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. “I was eager to start telling some of them through animation and, at the same time, push the art of animation forward…” [Link]

One of the major points covered in the press release is that a new female Jedi character will be introduced. She will serve as Anakin’s padawan (the way Anakin was Obi-wan’s padawan). The name of this young Jedi (who will of course eventually be hunted down and killed by Vader) is Ahsoka Tano:

… among the familiar characters like Obi-Wan, Anakin and Yoda is a mysterious new Padawan named Ahsoka Tano.

This young Togruta is eager to prove herself as a worthy Padawan to her bold Master, Anakin Skywalker. Able to wield a lightsaber and pilot a spacecraft with great talent, Ahsoka promises to become a worthy Jedi. [Link]

Tano joins a long list of other sci-fi desi characters. Mysterious is right though, because I can’t find much of a backstory on her yet. The name Ahsoka makes it seem like she is Indian (dot not feather) but the name Tano makes it seem like she is Indian (feather not dot). Or maybe, since this all happened a long long time ago, and in a considerably far off galaxy, ethnically ambiguous is ok. For those of you who like bad-ass ambiguously desi chicks, get your tee-shirt here. For those of you who like your animated warriors more traditional, there is always this.

abhi at 11:52 PM in Animation, Comics, Film, TV · 26 comment(s) · Direct link

January 05, 2008

Huckabee is totally Cobra Kai material.

Via SAJAForum, an…interesting political cartoon by Ted Rall which experiments with a provocative question: what if Republican threat to everything presidential candidate Mike Huckabee were a different sort of fundamentalist?

Here are the cartoonist’s own words regarding this work, from his blog:

Today’s cartoon responds to the generally respectful tone accorded Mike Huckabee, who does not believe in evolution and is therefore, by definition, a lunatic. [vague link]

I do appreciate Rall’s overarching point— Huckabee is allowed to be as batshit crazy as he wants to be because he’s on the fundamentalist fringe of my religion instead of any other one— since I’m no fan of the preacher man. It’s a very valid concern.

However, I also cringed slightly at how Rall made his point. I cynically wonder whether people will get mired in “Hinduism is strange” instead of questioning why we aren’t more worried about the rise of this candidate. After all, if Rall’s conception of Hindu fundamentalism (cobras? chanting? SATI??) confuses slightly-familiar-with-Hinduism-me, what will those with even less exposure to the religion think?

And if you are Hindu (as I think a majority of our readers are), are you offended by this cartoon?

anna at 06:40 PM in Comics, Issues, Politics, Religion · 255 comment(s) · Direct link

December 07, 2007

Rest in peace, young Desi, there's a heaven for a G...

If the pop culture ref I used for my title didn’t float your yacht, try this one from tipster Raj, who single-handedly ruined my afternoon by sending us the bad news:

“Oh my God !! They killed Asok, you Bastards!!”

A moment of silence, please, for the adorable, paavam*, wide-eyed IIT alum who will no longer be available for scapegoating and abuse. Wait a second…maybe he’s better off away from Wally, the Pointy-haired Boss and everyone else he (got) worked (over) by.

Asok (pronounced “a-shook”) is an intern in the Dilbert comic strip. He is a brilliant graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology…Asok often solves difficult problems in a few keystrokes, but he is still naïve to the cruelties and politics of the business world. As a result, he often ends up being the scapegoat for his coworkers’ antics. Despite many years as an intern, and performing the functions of a senior engineer, Asok has been denied permission to be a regular employee and the usage of company resources for his work.

It has been mentioned that Asok once lived in the handicapped stall of the bathroom; he later moved to a storage facility (but was only allowed an hour leave for moving by the Pointy-Haired Boss). Asok is also trained to sleep only on national holidays, a trait that he allegedly carried over from his alma mater. In addition, he was trained during his time at the Indian Institute of Technology in telekinesis, using it once to vaporize an obnoxious Texan and more recently to stealthily steal donuts in a meeting, and remove asbestos from the office. As well, he has mentioned that he has the ability to reheat his tea by holding a cup to his forehead and think about fire. Asok appears to be a fan of Indian music: in the animated episode “Art” he is shown listening enthusiastically to a female vocalist singing in Hindi. Recently, the Pointy-Haired Boss announced that Asok died while on a test of a moon shuttle prototype. Asok had planned to reincarnate into his clone, unfortunately Carol had used the jar containing his DNA as a candy jar. It is not known how Asok will return. [viki]

If you are one of the three people reading this post who has not been exposed to the charm of Asok, read on:

Asok: You can use my key to open the box with its teeth.

Dilbert: To open this box I’ll need something stronger than a key.

Asok: I once killed a cougar with this key.

[pause]

Asok: It was a really small cougar.

[pause]

Asok: It might have been a potato. [IMDB]

A-shook, you will be so very missed, especially by our interns here in the bunker, who for some odd reason felt a bizarre solidarity with you. Here’s hoping you are reincarnated, and soon; while many lament the lack of brown faces on television and movies, I feel that the acute insufficiency of desis in comic strips is a cause for just as much, if not more concern.

Asok was a wonderful ambassador of everything right about us— he was the humble, industrious, IIT-educated genius who countered all of those icky images of convenience store clerks and turbaned-yet-beard-free taxi drivers; I mean, we ALL know that everyone in America who is brown is smart and rich, right? Shucks, I’ll bet Asok was upper caste, too.

Considering all that tarradiddle, let us not underestimate the significance of this loss to our community, nay, the entire South Asian diaspora. I mean, why couldn’t Groening have killed off Apu, that other infamous desi cartoon whose name also starts with an “A”? Why did it have to be the fair-skinned, brilliant one, why?

***It’s one of my favorite Malayalam words, one for which I haven’t found a satisfactory English substitute. I think in Tamizzhrl, the correct translation is “chamatha”, but that may be off (and if it is, I’m smacking the Madras-born-and-bred cunning linguist who sold me that noise). Does anyone know what “Paavam” would be in Hindi? There are so many Southie polyglots here, I have faith that one or more of you will be able to figure this out. ;)

anna at 06:38 PM in Comics, Humor · 84 comment(s) · Direct link

September 19, 2007

How’s the fasting going?

Every year, at Ramadan, Hawk draws comics showing how his alter-ego is dealing with the challenges of fasting. These trippy comics are some of my favorites:

If you click on it, it’s the first in a sequence of Ramadan fasting themed strips.

Related posts: ‘Applegeeks’

ennis at 03:01 PM in Comics, Food, Holidays, Humor, Religion · 28 comment(s) · Direct link

July 31, 2007

Archie, not Panjabi

It looks like Jughead wont be the only cartoon character wearing a crown in Riverdale any more, there’s a desi (probably ABD) character in Archie’s world (via UB). I’m happy that the character looks and sounds like the others, hopefully he wont be Hajji to Archie’s Johnny Quest.

That said, I actually associate Archie more with India than America. I rarely saw Archie in the USA, but when I went to India there was always a stack of Archie comics in my relatives’ houses in Delhi. Since I often got bored hanging around while the adults caught up on years of news, I spent many hours reading the escapades of Archie, Betty, Veronica, Reggie and Jughead. Just writing this brings back that India paper smell, and all of a sudden I’m 10 again and in my parents’ country, with all the ambivalence that entails.

Archie Comics certainly sees India as fertile ground:

What? No redheads or blondes?

The US-based comic giant Archie Comics Entertainment is firming up its India plans. It is gearing up to launch local language content in India, besides an animation series featuring its characters. The company is in talks with three Indian animation studios for the production of the series. [Link]

Although it will have some competition from local imitators who have planned a Bollywood Archie who looks like a younger SRK:

… in what looks to be India’s answer to Archie, a teenage lookalike of King Khan plays a regular college kid with two femme fatales (Betty and Veronica?) who bear a strong resemblance to Aishwarya Rai and Rani Mukherji. The story is appropriately titled The Naughty Lover. [Link]

The ersatz Archie story is a year old, but I don’t know if they ever came out with “The Naughty Lover” or not. To the right is a comic from the same people, so it’s possible they just changed the name to the highly imaginative Bollywood.

Do you think that Raj Patel was added because of the expansion into India or just in response to America’s changing demographics? It’s a bit unusual in any case, given that Archie is perpetually stuck in America of the 1950s …

ennis at 04:43 PM in Comics · 27 comment(s) · 1 reader(s) linked · Direct link

July 27, 2007

Once Upon a Time... [UPDATED!]

…in a land not-at-all far away, there was a divisive issue that was almost as annoying as Paris Hilton— and just as ubiquitous, too.

According to the SAJAforum blog, yesterday, there was another cartoon on outsourcing (shocking! original! unexpected!).

This time, it’s Mother Goose & Grimm who are having their say. Well, more like Grimmy and Attila, but you know what I meant.

Do you think it’s funny?

Better yet, does anyone feel like getting creative the way our beloved DJ Drrrty Poonjabi did with the last cartoon I blogged about on this “hot topic”?

::

w00t Nina! Thanks for the prompt “revision”. :D

…that’s much better. Anyone else?

anna at 12:00 PM in Comics, Humor, Issues, Politics · 44 comment(s) · Direct link

May 18, 2007

Meena from the morgue

Questionable Content is a cult webcomic that is a cross between Friends and Seinfeld, except for Indie music snobs instead of mainstream audiences. It’s a “slice of life” story about 20-somethings in Northampton, Massachusetts. Recently, author and illustrator Jeph Jacques introduced Meena.

Meena works at the morgue, and flirts by making Ebola jokes. (This is realistic - I do know desi women in real life who flirt by making jokes about horrible diseases). She also has all the normal tribulations of a desi woman:

Yup. It’s slice of life, alright.

ennis at 07:21 PM in Comics · 61 comment(s) · Direct link

May 17, 2007

A Third Serving of Caste

…via SAJAforum. This ran in the WSJ today, as we were still discussing caste on this blog. What excellent timing for a barely-mediocre cartoon.

What do you think? Over at SAJA, commenter Sendhil had the following to say, which left me giggling:

If this is from the WSJ’s “Pepper… and Salt” spot, it’s not unusual that it’s not funny. Those cartoons are funny less often than “Fred Bassett”. I have concluded that they must serve some other, hidden, purpose, like sending coded messages about tomorrow’s Dow performance to the members of the Trilateral Commission.

Fred Bassett? Ouch.

anna at 03:41 PM in Comics, Issues, Short · 93 comment(s) · Direct link

May 10, 2007

Ain't No Sunshine When He's Gone

A raccoon, a turtle and a squirrel walk in to a bar…and nothin’. But this procyonid, testudine and rodent are a bit more useful than that—they’re amusing. Via Sajaforum:

Sigh. This Sanjaya free-existence is almost unbearable.

Come back, little papaya, with or without those bees. We long to know what directions your tresses could have taken next, what conditioner you use, and whether you ‘poo. No, really…do you? And where do you stand on hair oil? Perhaps we’ll never know…

anna at 07:02 PM in Comics, Humor, Short · 27 comment(s) · Direct link

May 08, 2007

My life, in construction paper

Just to chime in on the same theme as Abhi’s post below, I get a kick out of these Sikh Park cartoons from SikhChic.com:

ennis at 11:23 PM in Comics, Humor · 13 comment(s) · Direct link

Small hands are cute

It has been a while since we’ve received any Badmash in our inboxes. That’s because the Badmash crew has gone on a semi-permanent hiatus (as each of them moves on to other endeavours). Two Sundays ago anyone watching King of the Hill may have noticed that the lead writing credit for the episode went to former Badmash-er Sanjay Shah. The plot involved Hank Hill as the protagonist hooligan in a Grand Theft Auto-style shoot-em-up game called Pro Pain. Only fans of the show (living in Texas this is required viewing) will get why the title of the video game is so funny.

Badmash, however, isn’t the only example of a periodic desi comic strip. Readers of India Currents might also be familiar with a strip titled Small Hands, inked by Bay Area artist Nidhi Chanani. Here is an example of her cute strip:

Nidhi also has some artwork on her website in the same style as the strip. I wonder if the women from Kahani grab her up soon for help on their publication? Seems like she’d be a perfect fit.

Check out her stuff and let me know if there are other emerging comic strips we should be keeping an eye on.

abhi at 11:06 PM in Art, Comics, TV · 14 comment(s) · Direct link

March 20, 2007

Bring Me the Head of Nina the Infidel!

So, towards the end of my essay on acceptance, a commenter thoughtfully asked me to clarify what I meant by mentioning the fact that Nina Paley had lived in Kerala more recently than I had even visited it. Here’s what I said, which prompted her inquiry:

Nina has been to Kerala far more recently than I have; my last visit was back in the dark ages of 1989. In fact, she lived there, which is something I’ll probably never be able to claim. Who the hell am I or anyone else for that matter, to pull rank over that?

Did Nina’s stay in my parents’ home state give her carte blanche? No, of course it doesn’t. When I said that I wasn’t going to “pull rank”, I meant that I was going to acknowledge that others, even white others, might be more familiar with what everyone expects me to be an expert on, and because of that, I especially loathe the idea of playing the race card, i.e. I am desi, therefore I know more about (and/or get to restrict the unbrown from) my culture. If you read my post, you’ll know that I have a very intimate and poignant reason for why the part I italicized resonates with me.

I appreciate that Nagasai and Amitabh both opened a respectful dialogue about how they feel about Nina’s art but I also am known to be a fan of keeping threads on-topic, so I thought I’d spin this discussion off in to its own separate post, because the issues at play here are fascinating and significant.

What does Nina’s artwork mean to you?

What role does race play in all of this— how many of us would have the same issues we do if her name were Nina Patel vs. Nina Paley?

And how far do these “rules” go? Do some of you have a problem with the fact that I’m writing this post (i.e. that I’m a Christian, commenting on the appropriateness of Hindu imagery in art)? Inquiring and potentially bored mutineers want to know!

Before we get started, there are two things I would like to disclose:

It seems that many of you know each other and Nina in real life, and the natural instinct is to be emotional and defensive of your friends

1) I do know Nina in real life. She has near-perfect attendance at NYC meetups and I have been able to befriend her because of it. Having typed that, I am not writing from a place where I am emotional and defensive about my friend; rather, I am supportive of a mutinous community member whom I have met and whom I would vouch for in terms of intention and integrity. This isn’t seventh grade and I’m not a mean girl circling the wagons ‘round my BFF. This is a very special place and I think the fact that many of us have stretched online relationships formed here offline is a huge part of why that’s the case.

{Incidentally, this is also why I think meetups are more than mere frivolity; when you look someone in the eye, learn their “real” name and hear them laugh while trying some luscious ma ki dal with them, all of that contributes to a fuller, richer sense of whom that person is. This isn’t sorority rush either— I have never met a commenter I didn’t like. I’m always awed and touched when people make the effort to come hang out with us. So please do so, in the future. Not just because it adds to your “Mut-cred” in terms of how future comments from you will be interpreted, but because it’s always fun. :)}

2) Because so many of us are at work, I painted a very shabby halter bikini top on Nina’s cartoon, to de-NSFW it. That rack was driving me to distraction. ;) Forgive me, Miss Paley? The unmolested version of the image is here, for your consideration:

The comment thread on Nina’s own blog where people (mutineers included) initially discussed this image is here.

What I found most interesting was how though the symbolism in her drawing definitely evoked Kali, she never explicitly stated that she was depicting this very beloved Goddess. This reminds me of how all art is open to interpretation, and how the truth we see in it is often our own. I also think the fact that the severed head in one of “Desire’s” left hands is Nina’s own softened any potential offense I might have taken.

I’m not trying to say that how I feel about this image is what’s right or real, nor am I ignorant of the fact that if this were a depiction of my deity or one of his Saints, I’d be particularly sensitive to potential disrespect, much in the same way I am here when some of you (regulars included) have made throw-away comments which aren’t kind to Christianity. I don’t know how I would feel if I saw a cartoon of Jesus holding hands with a blow-up doll, but I also don’t think that example is analogous; I don’t associate Jesus with porntastic accessories. I do, however, associate Kali with raw energy, sexuality and power and if I am wrong to do so, I look forward to being corrected.

If anything struck me, I think I was more shocked about the placement of the “eye” than the castrated bit o’ man which the figure is shown holding. In fact, that last aspect of this cartoon almost delighted my inner warrior princess. Well, it definitely made her giggle. ;)

When I asked one of my closest friends if HIS TamBrahm sensibilities were offended, this is what ensued:

ANNA: I have a bloggy question which I feel funny asking you, since you’re hardly uber-religious ;)…but does this offend you?

SK: It shows ignorance on the part of the artist. It shows patience and understanding (about how these guys are ignorant) on the part of the Hindus. And it shows how advanced a religion we are as compared to others.

It does offend me, but not to a point where I would make a big deal out of it…hold on isn’t this … Nina from SM?

ANNA: Yes it’s Nina and I don’t think her depiction is inaccurate. Kali is fearsome, with severed heads et al…and I for one dig the imagery of her castrating someone and flaunting it. :D

If I were a blood-drunken goddess who just ripped someone’s d!@% off, I’d wave it around, too

SK: :)

ANNA: ah, wait…already did that in college ;)

SK: WHAT

ANNA: So, why are you offended? What’s so wrong? The severed penis?

SK: no no no…

ANNA: the fact that she’s naked? b/c I was always taught that Kali IS. She only wears maya. Is it the eyes? She’s drunk on blood.

Come on, out with it. You’re slow this morning. Kappi kudicho?

SK: no… no kappi and I am doing like three things at one. It’s about her being naked. As a figure that someone else prays to…I think there should have been a little more thought. I never said it was not funny, but just that it could hurt the sentiments of certain people. And you always have to careful of who you hurt. Does that make sense?

ANNA: SK. she IS naked. Nina’s depiction of her as nanga is accurate, AFAIK.

SK: ooh I had no clue… like you mean normally she is naked?

ANNA: Oh for heaven’s sake. SHE IS CLOTHED IN NOTHING BUT MAYA. does maya cover anything when YOU wear it??

I love how people get pissed about something they don’t even know thoroughly. ;)

SK: nope and I was not pissed

ANNA: From wiki— “She is often depicted naked with Maya as her only covering and is shown as very dark, as she has no permanent qualities — she will continue to exist even when the universe ends. It is therefore believed that the concepts of color, light, good, bad do not apply to her — she is the pure, un-manifested energy, the Adi-shakti.”

SK: Hmmm. Interesting.

::

All right, mutineers. I know I’m possibly going to regret even commencing this thread, but my inner optimist thinks that we can all behave and be civil to one another, even as we discuss such inflammatory concepts as religion, appropriateness, respect and place.

I have no qualms about shutting the thread down if we’re not learning anything, i.e. if it decays in to funda-spew, if it’s off-topic or if it’s just ad-hominem attacks on Nina. Please use Nagasai and Amitabh as examples of how one can fully disagree with or disapprove of the image in question without being all Massengill about it. Thank you, don’t flame through. :)

anna at 09:37 AM in Art, Comics, Humor, Issues, Religion · 240 comment(s) · Direct link

July 05, 2006

Superman is not Hanuman

Red-white-and blue, flying across the sky with his underwear on the outside … it’s hard to think of anything more American than Superman, right? Manish alerts us to an interesting claim made in an article by the “IndiaFM News Bureau” that Superman is nothing more than a Kaavya’ed Hanuman:

Word is that, that the original creators Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel were inspired from none other than the Indian mythological hero Hanuman and that is how Superman got his flying powers. [Link]

Sure there are some similarities between the two fictional characters: neither is human, they’re both super-strong, they can both fly, and both have names than end in -man. But that’s it, really. Much as I would love to claim Superman as desi, this claim makes as much sense as the claims that Vedic civilization had both airplanes and atomic weapons.

People (scholars even) have written a lot on the origins of Superman.You can find entire articles on this topic in the highly obscure internet source Wikipedia:

Because Siegal and Shuster were both Jewish it is thought that their creation was partly influenced by the Jewish legends of the Golem, a mythical being created to protect and serve the persecuted Jews of 16th century Prague and later revived in popular culture in reference to their suffering at the hands of Nazis in Europe during the 1930s and 1940s. Another influence could be Hugo Danner, the main character of the novel Gladiator by Philip Wylie. Danner has the same powers of the early Superman (as do many other pulp characters of the twenties and thirties)… However, the sources sited by Jerry Siegel himself were Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars and Tarzan, Johnston McCulley’s Zorro and E.C. Seegar’s Popeye. He also appears to have been influenced by Jack Williamson’s “The Girl From Mars.” [Link]

See - no reference to Hanuman made, ever. While it’s impossible to prove a negative (I cannot show definitively that they were not influenced by Hanuman), how would two Jewish kids in the 1930s know about Hanuman anyway? [And why would they need to know about Hanuman to come up with the idea of a flying hero? What, nobody in the west had ever thought of flying people before? This is after Peter Pan, for crying out loud.]

So where does this “confusion” come from, besides the sloppiness of Indian journalists? Manish again provides a useful clue. Mukesh Khanna said:

“When I was doing Shaktiman, critics told me it was a bad copy of Superman … I used to tell them that the Superman idea was, in fact, lifted from our own Hanuman so no one can accuse me of plagiarism.” [Link]

Honestly, that’s the only place I’ve ever seen the connection made and that’s by an actor using a more original line than “unconscious internalization” to defend himself against claims of plaigiarism.

The claim that the two are related is bizarre. They look nothing alike, act nothing alike (Hanuman is Ram’s right hand monkey, while Superman plays second banana to nobody), and most importantly Kryptonians act Jewish, not Hindu.

To our friends at the “IndiaFM News Bureau” goes the Times of India award for high quality journalism and a t-shirt of Jason Alexander.

ennis at 12:32 AM in Comics, Literature, Religion · 39 comment(s) · Direct link

June 23, 2006

A brown Justice League?

All of a sudden the desi comic book scene seems to be blowing up. It has led me to pose the timely question, “is the world ready for a brown Justice League?”

Let’s meet some of the candidates. First we have Sonic. No, not the hedgehog. This one is all woman as you can see. Sonic is featured in the new comic book series titled Guardian Heroes by Kevin Grevioux, who was one of the folks behind the movie Underworld.

There are three questions that immediately came to mind:

1) Does this woman workout at Manish’s gym in Mumbai?
2) What are the tunes she be spinning from those long fingered hands?
3) Does the oversized bindi have any special powers associated with it?

In addition to the Guardian Heroes, we also have a cast of potential brown Justice Leaguers from the new Virgin Comics venture. Via an email:

We are coming out with three issues, each with work done by distinguished personalities like Deepak Chopra, Alex Ross, and Greg Horn - all champions in their own fields. This new venture in the world of comics brings together fantasy and Indian mythology in a brilliant form for the world.

This next dude looks pretty bad-ass. I think they should make the tiger talk also, like Cringer/Battlecat:

Check out the rest of the superheroes/villains and let’s hope this is in no way a harbinger of the Kali Yuga.

See related posts: World Wide spider-Web, The Anatomy of a Spider, Smashing icons, Chopra tackles comics, Ramayana graphic novel available online, Swab-in-cheek wisdom, A new comic book hero, Angry Eggplants!, Sanjay finds a loophole

abhi at 01:07 PM in Comics · 31 comment(s) · 1 reader(s) linked · Direct link

May 25, 2006

Mahabharatha Reloaded

I’ve always loved comic books—actually, any illustrated book. It seems insane that you wouldn’t. Why wouldn’t you want words and pictures to work together, in harmony? But many people don’t. They think the pictures are a shortcut, that the words cheapen the images.

This post is clearly not for them. I believe in shortcuts, as starting points to learning. When I was 10, I found a book of “collected stories of Shakespeare.” I didn’t know who Shakespeare was, but the book—illustrated, of course—introduced me to his wondrous, unlimited imagination. That kind of fascination does not die easily. For me, it taking and eventually teaching classes in Shakespeare, and rushing to every Shakespearean adaptation, no matter how bizarre (Ethan Hawke’s Hamlet springs to mind as does Pacino’s Looking for Richard). If it hadn’t been for that initial taste, in bite size 10-year old pieces, I might be one of those unfortunates who glaze over every time the Bard is mentioned.

So, back to comic books. I’m an avowed X-Men fan, and was weaned on Wonder Woman, but my first comic book love was and still is Amar Chitra Katha. Wait—is that eye-rolling I see? I hope not.

Amar Chitra Katha was my “short cut” into Indian culture. I was lucky; my parents always had Indian friends who they saw often, who had children I who I went to school with, and tried to surround us with the culture that they had grown up with. As soon as I learned to read, my father did two things: bought me a nice “Ex-Libris” leather bookmark, and the entire Amar Chitra Katha comic book series, bound with red paper covers.

Bear in mind that I grew up with parents who strictly limited my weekly library book allowance to 5 (and no magazines), and you will understand, as I did then, the significance of this purchase. By some quirk, I started with the second 10 books first—Chanyaka through Vikramaditya. But I quickly read every one.

For those of you who do not know, Amar Chitra Katha is a venerable old Indian comic book series that tells the tales of Indian myths, history and religious stories. There has been much recent criticism of the comics; here is a typical link.

This article throws a lot of heat at AKC’s way, some deserved. Racist? Of course—lots about the caste system in ancient Hindu culture. Sexist? Ditto. Badly written? Well, it was pretty pompous—I made the mistake of “taking a vow of silence” on the playground one day that ended somewhat badly for me. And I know that many people minded having to look up words like “dharma” or “asura” but I was fine with it. (of course, if you’ve read my Nerd/Geek entry, you’d know why).

I did not learn many bad lessons from Amar Chitra Katha. I was perplexed by how many people had blue skin. But mostly, I learned that my culture was beautiful, that it was old and important, that its values were very complex. I went easily from stories of Guru Gobind Singh to Buddha to Valmiki to Noor Jahan, unaware that I was supposed choose one over the other. That was the one thing that Amar Chitra lacked—animosity. I read stories, but I didn’t really grasp how many old angers divided the cultures I read about. And I still have a weak timeline of Indian history.

The AKC comics are not perfect, but what children’s literature is? It’s all exaggeration and fantasy, run through with threads of violence and death. It’s always about the beautiful conquering the ugly—but also about the clever conquering the stupid, and the lazy. My collection of AKC sparked a sense of identity in myself. I loved my MTV and played with Barbies, but this, this ancient, magical India, was part of me too.

As a non-practicing Hindu, I would hate, absolutely hate, an Amar Chitra Katha that didn’t allow all religions to tell their stories in comic book form, that allowed me to understand why Sikhs wear turbans and why Hindu sages once starved themselves, what the practice of syamvara is. The stories will never be fully accurate—they are just like my book of “Shakespeare stories” but the planted a seed of interest in Indian history that hasn’t gone away. With Amar Chitra Katha, I could incorporate my eight-year old interpretations of Buddhist teachings (that Siddharta was so good!)with Vedic ones (go Rama! go Krishna!), to investigate what traditions (polygamy, child marriage, widow burning) are no longer central to the culture. I want my children to have the same opportunity that I did to act out both the stories of Akbar the Clever and the Mahabharata. I’ve heard rumors that these comic books are or have been edited by the Hindu nationalist party—I sincerely hope not. I’ve never believed in silencing minority voices.

That said, I wouldn’t mind updated, glossy versions of the old AKC comics, a few more stories about clever apsaras or sage’s daughters who outwitted demons disguised as foxes. A few more warrior maidens like Noor Jahan rather than martyrs like Padmini, and I’d be ready to stock my library for future generations of lawyerwriters.

But all the excitement I feel is nothing compared to what I’d feel if someone did a really good adaptation of a Mahabharata—top of the line special effects, great storytelling, top writing. I haven’t seen it yet. Because I love the story, I have suffered through years of plastic-looking battle scenes, melodramatic line-reading and blandly smiling Krishnas. If movies like The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon can revolutionize action sequences, the least we can do is get the folks behind Xena the Warrior Princess to get us a convincing Ghatokacha, or at least Ravana with heads that don’t look like a row of masks. And can we get battle scenes that consist more that than men in cardboard armor fighting clanging swords in front a smoke machine to the sounds of pots and pans clanging? Please? Someone, look up Saving Private Ryan or even Gladiator for a good war sequence. What’s wrong with keeping the comic-book sensibility, the great visuals that AKC popped into my head, alive! If they can do it with Spiderman, they can do it with Abhimanyu.

After all, what more can I expect from the X-Men? I don’t have high hopes for the movie, which is coming out this Friday, and which I will probably see anyway. I believe this fixation will last about as long as the opening credits. First of all, as I have said before, no Gambit. What, was Josh Lucas too waterlogged from Poseidon? Second, lesser director. It’s a tough thing to go from Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects) to Brett Ratner (Rush Hour). The latter is a competent action director; the former is a storyteller. Third: I just KNOW they’re going to blow the whole Dark Phoenix storyline.

If I get bored during the movie, I’ll work on casting my fantasy Mahabharata in my head. Unfortunately, I really don’t know too many Bollywood actors, which makes keeping the fantasy cast brown and proud very hard. Will we have to plug in key roles using….white actors? Maybe even…the token African-American? The scandal! The riots! The ritual suicides waiting to happen!

Just remember: anything is better than Salman Khan.

neeraja at 12:00 AM in Arts and Entertainment, Comics, Comics, Film, History, Politics, Religion · 109 comment(s) · Direct link

Mahabharatha Reloaded

I’ve always loved comic books—actually, any illustrated book. It seems insane that you wouldn’t. Why wouldn’t you want words and pictures to work together, in harmony? But many people don’t. They think the pictures are a shortcut, that the words cheapen the images.

This post is clearly not for them. I believe in shortcuts, as starting points to learning. When I was 10, I found a book of “collected stories of Shakespeare.” I didn’t know who Shakespeare was, but the book—illustrated, of course—introduced me to his wondrous, unlimited imagination. That kind of fascination does not die easily. For me, it taking and eventually teaching classes in Shakespeare, and rushing to every Shakespearean adaptation, no matter how bizarre (Ethan Hawke’s Hamlet springs to mind as does Pacino’s Looking for Richard). If it hadn’t been for that initial taste, in bite size 10-year old pieces, I might be one of those unfortunates who glaze over every time the Bard is mentioned.

So, back to comic books. I’m an avowed X-Men fan, and was weaned on Wonder Woman, but my first comic book love was and still is Amar Chitra Katha. Wait—is that eye-rolling I see? I hope not.

Amar Chitra Katha was my “short cut” into Indian culture. I was lucky; my parents always had Indian friends who they saw often, who had children I who I went to school with, and tried to surround us with the culture that they had grown up with. As soon as I learned to read, my father did two things: bought me a nice “Ex-Libris” leather bookmark, and the entire Amar Chitra Katha comic book series, bound with red paper covers.

Bear in mind that I grew up with parents who strictly limited my weekly library book allowance to 5 (and no magazines), and you will understand, as I did then, the significance of this purchase. By some quirk, I started with the second 10 books first—Chanyaka through Vikramaditya. But I quickly read every one.

For those of you who do not know, Amar Chitra Katha is a venerable old Indian comic book series that tells the tales of Indian myths, history and religious stories. There has been much recent criticism of the comics; here is a typical link.

This article throws a lot of heat at AKC’s way, some deserved. Racist? Of course—lots about the caste system in ancient Hindu culture. Sexist? Ditto. Badly written? Well, it was pretty pompous—I made the mistake of “taking a vow of silence” on the playground one day that ended somewhat badly for me. And I know that many people minded having to look up words like “dharma” or “asura” but I was fine with it. (of course, if you’ve read my Nerd/Geek entry, you’d know why).

I did not learn many bad lessons from Amar Chitra Katha. I was perplexed by how many people had blue skin. But mostly, I learned that my culture was beautiful, that it was old and important, that its values were very complex. I went easily from stories of Guru Gobind Singh to Buddha to Valmiki to Noor Jahan, unaware that I was supposed choose one over the other. That was the one thing that Amar Chitra lacked—animosity. I read stories, but I didn’t really grasp how many old angers divided the cultures I read about. And I still have a weak timeline of Indian history.

The AKC comics are not perfect, but what children’s literature is? It’s all exaggeration and fantasy, run through with threads of violence and death. It’s always about the beautiful conquering the ugly—but also about the clever conquering the stupid, and the lazy. My collection of AKC sparked a sense of identity in myself. I loved my MTV and played with Barbies, but this, this ancient, magical India, was part of me too.

As a non-practicing Hindu, I would hate, absolutely hate, an Amar Chitra Katha that didn’t allow all religions to tell their stories in comic book form, that allowed me to understand why Sikhs wear turbans and why Hindu sages once starved themselves, what the practice of syamvara is. The stories will never be fully accurate—they are just like my book of “Shakespeare stories” but the planted a seed of interest in Indian history that hasn’t gone away. With Amar Chitra Katha, I could incorporate my eight-year old interpretations of Buddhist teachings (that Siddharta was so good!)with Vedic ones (go Rama! go Krishna!), to investigate what traditions (polygamy, child marriage, widow burning) are no longer central to the culture. I want my children to have the same opportunity that I did to act out both the stories of Akbar the Clever and the Mahabharata. I’ve heard rumors that these comic books are or have been edited by the Hindu nationalist party—I sincerely hope not. I’ve never believed in silencing minority voices.

That said, I wouldn’t mind updated, glossy versions of the old AKC comics, a few more stories about clever apsaras or sage’s daughters who outwitted demons disguised as foxes. A few more warrior maidens like Noor Jahan rather than martyrs like Padmini, and I’d be ready to stock my library for future generations of lawyerwriters.

But all the excitement I feel is nothing compared to what I’d feel if someone did a really good adaptation of a Mahabharata—top of the line special effects, great storytelling, top writing. I haven’t seen it yet. Because I love the story, I have suffered through years of plastic-looking battle scenes, melodramatic line-reading and blandly smiling Krishnas. If movies like The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon can revolutionize action sequences, the least we can do is get the folks behind Xena the Warrior Princess to get us a convincing Ghatokacha, or at least Ravana with heads that don’t look like a row of masks. And can we get battle scenes that consist more that than men in cardboard armor fighting clanging swords in front a smoke machine to the sounds of pots and pans clanging? Please? Someone, look up Saving Private Ryan or even Gladiator for a good war sequence. What’s wrong with keeping the comic-book sensibility, the great visuals that AKC popped into my head, alive! If they can do it with Spiderman, they can do it with Abhimanyu.

After all, what more can I expect from the X-Men? I don’t have high hopes for the movie, which is coming out this Friday, and which I will probably see anyway. I believe this fixation will last about as long as the opening credits. First of all, as I have said before, no Gambit. What, was Josh Lucas too waterlogged from Poseidon? Second, lesser director. It’s a tough thing to go from Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects) to Brett Ratner (Rush Hour). The latter is a competent action director; the former is a storyteller. Third: I just KNOW they’re going to blow the whole Dark Phoenix storyline.

If I get bored during the movie, I’ll work on casting my fantasy Mahabharata in my head. Unfortunately, I really don’t know too many Bollywood actors, which makes keeping the fantasy cast brown and proud very hard. Will we have to plug in key roles using….white actors? Maybe even…the token African-American? The scandal! The riots! The ritual suicides waiting to happen!

Just remember: anything is better than Salman Khan.

neeraja at 12:00 AM in Arts and Entertainment, Comics, Comics, Film, History, Politics, Religion · 109 comment(s) · Direct link

March 18, 2006

Dancing, not shuffling (updated)

A new Cartoon Network series, Minoriteam, aims to be a sendup of racism. But it’s not clear whether it’s mocking stereotypes or just profiting off them. I’m going to assume the humor just doesn’t come across well in print:

‘By chutney, you’re right!’

Created by Adam de la Peña, Todd James and Peter Girardi — all alumni of the ribald Comedy Central puppet series “Crank Yankers” — “Minoriteam” is a provocative animated show that sends up bigotry. It makes its debut tomorrow night on Cartoon Network’s late-night “Adult Swim” block of animated shows…

Non-Stop is the alter ego of Dave Raj, an Indian, former professional skateboarder turned convenience store clerk who is incapable of being killed by firearms. After having been shot 235 times during various attempted robberies, his skin is saturated with lead, which serves as a bulletproof armor of sorts; when necessary, his skateboard morphs into a flying carpet. [Link]

If you’re keeping score at home, we have one half-naked, turbaned Indian convenience store clerk on a flying carpet, one Chinese laundry owner with a thick accent, one Mexican gardener who can’t speak English, one angry, promiscuous black man and one avaricious Jew. How subversive.

The team’s leader, Dr. Wang, is an Asian, wheelchair-bound mathematical genius with a freakishly large brain. He speaks with a heavy Chinese accent and is in the laundry business…

Landon K. Dutton, a black man awkwardly teaching women’s studies at Male University, turns into Fasto, the world’s fastest man. His extreme rage propels him to travel at breakneck speeds. When not fighting crime he spends his time “studying” the opposite sex; during one episode, it takes him only seconds to satisfy a roomful of Thai prostitutes.

Richard Escartin, a Mexican oil baron, trades his tailored suits and silk ties for a giant sombrero and a leaf blower when he becomes El Jefe, Minoriteam’s hardest working member. El Jefe’s blower is no ordinary garden tool. It can suck and blow with deadly force and rip holes through time and space. His kryptonite? Tequila. “I think a lot of people can relate to that,” Mr. de la Peña said.

Neil Horvitz may be a wimpy mail clerk in his early 20’s, but his alter ego, Jewcano, is a muscle-bound 62-year-old who sports an XXXL yarmulke and has all the power of the Jewish faith and a raging volcano. Watch him shoot molten lava from his wrists (move over, Spider-Man)…

Surely someone will be uncomfortable watching a Jewish superhero get aroused while chasing a giant glowing nickel, they said. “But who exactly will it offend?” Mr. de la Peña asked. “I have no idea…” [Link]

Um, Jews? Just a wild guess. You can pull off this kind of satire, it just requires some finesse. More often, a filmmaker will claim a work is against, say, violence while drenching the screen in stage blood. The disclaimer lets the filmmaker get mass-market trashy while inoculating the work against charges of exploitation. As Dave Chappelle said, ‘I want to make sure I’m dancing and not shuffling.’

Dave Raj by day

But I haven’t seen the series yet, so it’s entirely possible that it’s hilarious and they’ve walked the line. This bit sounds great:

The multiethnic crew battles a gang of villains including the sniveling Corporate Ladder (an anthropomorphized ladder with a cape and a pipe), Racist Frankenstein (a bigoted monster) and Standardized Test, whose head is shaped like a No. 2 pencil and whose body resembles a Scantron test. White Shadow, the bad guys’ bumbling leader, has a head that looks eerily like the pyramid found on the back of a dollar bill. He spews nonsensical corporate-speak, using words like “synergy” and phrases like “Let’s all get on the same page.” [Link]

It is Adult Swim, so here’s hoping.

Update: Wikipedia explains that most of the characters do have non-stereotypical angles after all. Bravo.

The superheroes are:

• Non-Stop, an Indian convenience store owner who is immune to all forms of live ammunition (ironically mis-identified in widely-distributed publicity as Middle Eastern). In his non-stereotypical real life he is an ex-professional skateboarder.
• El Jefe, a Mexican that fights crime with a leaf blower and does not speak English. In his non-stereotypical real life he is the CEO of his own oil company…
• Fasto, an African-American man who is known as “the fastest man that ever was.” In his non-stereotypical real life, he is a bookish Professor of Women’s Studies.
• Jewcano, a man with the powers of the Jewish faith and a volcano. In his non-stereotypical real life, he dates statuesque black women and loves soul food. [Link]

Poor Dr. Wang gets screwed:

• Dr. Wang, Chinese Human Calculator is the leader of the Minoriteam. He also owns and operates a laundromat. He has no known non-stereotypical real life. [Link]

Note how the Indian character was mislabeled as Middle Eastern. As mainstream humor about blacks and Latinos gets smarter and more nuanced, humor about desis and Asians generally hasn’t kept pace.

Watch the pilot (thanks, Ravin). It gives new meaning to the phrase ‘the power of stereotypes.’

manish at 11:44 AM in Comics, Issues, TV · 28 comment(s) · Direct link

March 08, 2006

‘Applegeeks’

Applegeeks is an anime-style Web comic drawn by two desi students at University of Maryland, College Park, Mohammad ‘Hawk’ Haque and Ananth Panagariya. They got a shout-out in last week’s Newsweek for a potential book deal:

Haque

Panagariya

As a sign that they’re settling in, some of the parents of these twentysomethings are beginning to see that prestige can be measured in more than M.D.s. “In the end, if you do excel, you’re going to succeed in your field,” [Arvind Panagariya, an economics professor at Columbia University] concedes, referring to his 22-year-old son, whose Web comic Applegeeks is in negotiations to be published as a book. [Link]

It’s lushly drawn with mostly geek humor, but Haque occasionally throws in references to Islam and discrimination:

Mr. Squirrely - The squirrel with mysterious powers and the ability to communicate with Hawk. Possibly a delusion brought on by Hawk’s Ramadan fasting…

Jayce torturing Hawk during Ramadan. Ramadan is a Muslim holiday which calls for fasting. Hawk follows this tradition and during it, Jayce often teases him by eating immense portions of food. Mr. Squirrely’s first appearance is during one of Hawk’s fasts. [Link]

UMD is also the alma mater of Liberty Meadows creator Frank Cho. That’s at least three Asian-American cartoonists from one campus — must be something in the water. But both strips’ obsessions with cartoon vixens is classic geek.

Related post: Smashing icons

manish at 03:10 PM in Comics, Religion · 20 comment(s) · Direct link

February 12, 2006

Secret Angry Asian Men

From time to time, Ennis and Vinod remind me of the awesomeness of the Secret Asian Man comic strip. They’re drawn by Boston artist Tak Toyoshima, and although only a few are specifically about desis, there are tons of parallels.

Jet Li and Aaliyah in ‘Romeo Must Die’

If Secret Asian Man hooked up with Angry Asian Man, we’d have Secret Angry Asian Men. And where you find Secret Angry Asian Men, mutiny hangs thick in the air. (Whereas around Fat Happy Asian Men, you find muttony hanging. Very different.)

Some of the desi parallels:

Underrepresentation

• Never Gets the Girl (a.k.a. Hollywood Thanks): The all-time classic
• What’s in a Name?: Never finding your name in souvenir stores
• No Hollywood Hunk: Thank you, Fisher Stevens (the original reference)
• Classic Movie Part 1: Never finding desi actors in classic American movies, except in degrading roles
• Secret Asian Man Loves SPAM!: Spam using desi names

Second-gen cinema

• Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle: Joker, smoker, midnight toker
• Better Luck Tomorrow: Better movies today
• Classic Movie Part 2: The silver screen improves

Culture clash

• Sad But True Tales: Dot, not feather
• Advice for New Dads: All look same
• A Holiday of One’s Own: No Diwali?
• The New Majority: ‘Where are you from?’
• Seriously Committed (Or Maybe He Should Be): Self-immolation as protest
• Nowruz: Irani and Parsi Navroz holiday

‘Don’t call me South Asian’

• What’s Asian American?
• Pan-Asian Unity
• Asian (Con) Fusion
• The Cost of Representing

Politics

• Skeletons: U.S.-born citizens can be deported too
• Asian American Month 2004: ‘South Asians don’t face real discrimination’
• Yao Ming, Hideki Matsui, and Me: Quitcher bellyachin’

Ethnocentrism

• How I’m Racist: Asian ethnocentrism
• The Tsunami and Media Standards: White ethnocentrism

Being an American

• Independence Day: No hyphenation
• Patriotic: The motherland has issues

Check out all the strips.

Related post: Secret Asian Man weighs in on media coverage of the tsunami

manish at 04:27 PM in Comics, Humor · 24 comment(s) · Direct link

February 06, 2006

The Danish cartoon controversy: A contrast in protests

Here at SM headquarters we have quite an intricate system for vetting which stories make it to our website. Most of our stories are unearthed by the army of ex test-monkeys (retired from military, space, and medical research) that we house in our basement. They are the ones who scour the internet all day and feed important stories to our bloggers, while we spend most of our time at our full-time jobs. We also have the tipline, by which dedicated readers send in tips. Later, in our conference room, we ask ourselves three main questions about a prospective post:

1. Can I do this story justice/am I knowledgeable and interested enough to write about it without sounding ignorant?
2. Does the story have an angle highlighting South Asians?
3. Does the story have an angle of interest to North Americans?

The reason you haven’t seen us post on this topic before is because not all of us were convinced that we could answer yes to all three questions. After attending the SAAN Conference this past weekend (which will be summarized in my next post), I have become convinced that we have missed the relevance this issue has to our community, and that the answer to all three questions is yes. I am speaking of course of the controversy surrounding a Danish newspaper’s decision to publish a picture of the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb as his turban.

Arab foreign ministers have condemned the Danish government for failing to act against a newspaper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
At the Arab League conference in Cairo, they said they were “surprised and discontented at the response”.

Islam forbids any depiction of Muhammad or of Allah.

The Jyllands-Posten newspaper published a series of 12 cartoons showing Muhammad, in one of which he appeared to have a bomb in his turban. [Link]

I see great irony in this situation that doesn’t seem to have registered in the press (as far as I know). Muslims around the world are protesting this cartoon (often violently) because it is forbidden in Islam to depict the Prophet, especially in such a vulgar manner as this. Muhammad, in his boundless wisdom, wanted to make sure that his image would never be used or treated as an idol, and that men would never worship him as one. In Christianity for example, many most sects now worship Christ as God, instead of seeing him as only a mortal prophet. It was the message of Islam, and not Muhammad the man, that was to better the world. By violently protesting this cartoon, it could be argued that Muslims around the world are acting as if an idol has been desecrated. Using violence to protest this “desecration” legitimizes that which the Prophet cautioned against in the first place. He has become an idol to be defended and avenged in the eyes of many.

Part of the reason that we haven’t already written about this issue is that it hasn’t had nearly as much impact in the U.S. as it has had in Europe and the rest of the world. Do Americans even care or understand what this is all about? Why am I not hearing more about this from the desi community? Before I go on, I want you to take a careful look at some pictures. Don’t read text that follows the pictures until you guess which country each was taken in:

1.
2.
3.
4.

Muslims offended by the [Philadelphia] Inquirer’s decision to reprint a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad that has inflamed the sensibilities of their co-religionists across the world picketed the newspaper this morning…

Most American newspapers have decided not to reprint the cartoon. Newspapers in Europe have, as a gesture of free press solidarity with Jyllands-Posten, run the caricature as well as 11 others pillorying the prophet. One image depicts Muhammad halting a line of suicide bombers at the gates of heaven with the cry, “Stop, stop, we have run out of virgins…”

One demonstrator, 54-year old Aneesha Uqdah of Philadelphia, argued that precedent exists for newspapers to withhold some information to prevent harm: “If a woman was a rape victim, you wouldn’t publish her name,” she said…

The demonstrators carried signs that read, “Freedom of Speech, Not Irresponsible Speech,” “No to Hate” and “Islam = Nonviolence…” [Link]

Speaking outside his home in Bedford, Mr Khayam, 22, said: “I found the pictures deeply offensive as a Muslim and I felt the Danish newspaper had been provocative and controversial, deeply offensive and insensitive.

“But by me dressing the way I did, I did just that, exactly the same as the Danish newspaper, if not worse. My method of protest has offended many people, especially the families of the victims of the July bombings. This was not my intention.”

Downing Street today described the behaviour of some Muslim demonstrators in London over the last few days as “completely unacceptable”. Some demonstrators carried placards calling for people who insult Islam to be killed. [Link]

There is a tension in the Islamic world between the desire for democracy and a respect for liberty. (It is a tension that once raged in the West and still exists in pockets today.) This is most apparent in the ongoing fury over the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a small Danish newspaper. The cartoons were offensive and needlessly provocative. Had the paper published racist caricatures of other peoples or religions, it would also have been roundly condemned and perhaps boycotted. But the cartoonist and editors would not have feared for their lives. It is the violence of the response in some parts of the Muslim world that suggests a rejection of the ideas of tolerance and freedom of expression that are at the heart of modern Western societies. [Link]

abhi at 06:22 PM in Comics, News, Photos, Politics, Religion · 243 comment(s) · Direct link

January 20, 2006

Badmash, Drew Carey, Sheetal Sheth, and Karma

Last night I went to the sold out Badmash Comedy Night in West Hollywood. The Badmash guys (Sanjay Shah, Sandeep Sood, Nimesh Patel, and Aron Bothman) are going to be putting on a recurring comedy night in LA (next one is on February 9th), which brings together both South Asian and non-South Asian comics. This is a smart mix. Audiences get tired of a whole night full of desi comedy, with only desi “insider” jokes. The comics end up competing with each other over who will use the same hackneyed “aunty joke” first. Some of the best new South Asian comics that perform here in LA are already moving away from such played-out routines. Their jokes are well balanced and appeal to a general audience, which is key for long term success. Badmash is trying to foster this new talent.

Continue reading this post to learn the sad real life story behind this picture

[The internet] has also allowed Sanjay Shah, 28, and his friends to find an audience unserved by traditional TV. For the last few years, their weekly South Asian-themed animations—like an Indian spoof of “The Simpsons” ‘s opening theme—have drawn millions of visitors to his site, Badmash.org. “I look at the Internet right now as the incubator, the RD department for traditional channels,” Shah says.

I actually attended the comedy night as “Press.” One problem. The batteries in my camera died just as the show began. THIS folks is why I am a mere blogger and not a journalist. I’d make a sorry excuse of a journalist. It was quite unfortunate, because none other than Sheetal Sheth was in the audience. The night was co-sponsored by Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World, which was plugged throughout the night. Also performing was a surprise guest. Mr. Cleveland himself, Drew Carey, was in the house. His jokes are a lot dirtier in person than you would think from watching him on television. Comedian Jo Koy was on fire. Good stuff.

As much as I complain about life in LA, THIS is why I do like living here. Everyone desi you meet in LA has a thing that they do on the side. They have their main job, career, or way to pay the bills, and then they have their “side thing.” The truly brave ones make their “side thing” their main thing. I’ve always felt that life would suck unless you have “a side thing,” going at all times. You should, at all moments of your life, be pursuing something that you will probably fail at. Speaking of which…

So as I am leaving the show I run into my friend (let’s call him Arun to keep his real identity safe).

Arun: “Hey Abhi. I’ve been reading Sepia Mutiny. You’ve been blogging about my friend Sheetal. Here, why don’t you meet her.”

Abhi: “Uhhh…” [cornered like a mouse about to be killed softly]

Sheetal: [with sweet, sexy, coy look] “What? You’ve been blogging about me? Good things I hope?? [flutter eyelash]

Abhi: [turning so red that my brown skin appeared sepia] “Oh yeah, I promise. I swear. I’m really a nice guy. I’m so embarrassed right now.”

I don’t remember the rest of the conversation because all the blood had leaked out of my brain and into my cheeks. Abhi’s Rule of Blogging number one: NEVER blog about a girl’s breasts. NEVER! There is just nowhere to go from there people. You don’t have a leg to stand on. Nothing you can say will impress her at that point. You are like a little bunny and she is like a big bear. Rrrrrrrrr. That brings me to Abhi’s Rule of Blogging number two: If you do blog about a beautiful girl, then say only nice things. That’s right all you non-believers. Karma is real. I thought she was foooooine just the way she was and said so in my previous post. It turns out she is a sweetheart also.

At the after party I ran into Arun again. He said I should ask Sheetal if I could take a picture with her. I didn’t know if she wanted some random guy blogger to take a picture with her, but I did want to ask. Not for me but…for…the readers. See how hard I work for you all? Only one problem. Remember?? My camera battery had died! Damn the cruel hand of fate that mocks me so. All I had was my camera phone. Even then I was foiled. I don’t have the Sprint Picture Phone service, so there was no way for me to get the picture off of my phone. Sprint PCS better read this shit and call me. I could be their new spokesperson. THIS is why you need their service. The ghetto-ass result of my night is the picture above. It is a picture of me with Sheetal. Yeah, I know. It is so fuzzy that it could be any girl and I could be making this whole thing up. I swear it played out just like I’ve said.

See folks, this is karma. I could have gotten slapped if I were a hater, but instead I got a conversation and a picture with a beautiful girl.

Blog Life till I die.

abhi at 03:43 PM in Comics, Film, Humor · 37 comment(s) · Direct link

December 16, 2005

V-V-Veronica

A Singapore-based desi art studio is launching four new Indian comic books in India and Southeast Asia (thanks, Rage). The four titles are Bollywood, Mythology, Santa Banta & Trendy and Hawk.

“Focusing on the 25 million strong Indian diaspora, Illustrated Orchids started developing the comics based on Indian characters. Of course there is a huge market at home, but the Indian staying overseas always want to have something which can keep their kids attached to our culture.” [Link]

While the Mythology title looks like a higher-quality, manga-style competitor to Amar Chitra Katha, the Bollycomic looks like Archie come to life. Shah Rukh Khan would be Archie (but not Panjabi), Rani Mukherjee is Betty, Aishwarya Rai is Veronica, Aamir Khan is Jughead and plug-haired Salman Khan is definitely Reggie.

A lot of lame Sikh jokes revolve around Santa and Banta Singh, so it’s a bit surprising to see a sardar involved with that title.

More art after the jump.

Santa Banta storyboard [via Ash Singh]

Santa Banta character [via Ash Singh]

manish at 05:18 PM in Comics · 17 comment(s) · Direct link

December 14, 2005

Office politics

Asok corrects the boss

In the latest Dilbert, Asok the intern puts the pointy-haired boss in his place.

I’ve often heard from uncle types that desis don’t advance up the U.S. corporate ladder because they’re bad at office politics. But business in the motherland is highly political. I think it’s partly that they’re unfamiliar with American office politics, and partly that many of the straight-arrow types emigrated precisely to get away from it.

manish at 02:39 AM in Comics, Issues · 28 comment(s) · Direct link

November 13, 2005

Mortified

‘The Boondocks,’ a leftist, angry-black-man comic drawn like anime, reeeeeeaches for a punchline. This is more puerile than its usual fare and conflates Hinduism with Islam, though it’s more a comment on the grandfather character’s bumbling.

Mohandas Gandhi’s hunger strikes have long been the object of derision in cultures without ascetic tradition. Churchill dismissing Gandhi as ‘nauseating’ and a ‘half-naked fakir’ wasn’t just the poisoned fruit of an embittered colonialist, it was also gut-level cultural revulsion which transcends political orientation. When Jon Stewart makes fun of ululating Arabs on the Daily Show, or show alumnus Stephen Colbert cracks a Gandhi starvation joke, they’re expressing culture clash. Personally, I draw the line at the Shi’as’ bloody self-flagellation during the Ashura festival and the self-mortifying skin hooks for the Thaipusam festival shown in the ‘Mundeyan To Bach Ke’ video (thanks, jeet).

But dissidents like Mandela have long gone on hunger strike, and many African countries are much poorer than India. The American shorthand for starvation used to be Ethiopian famine — why now Gandhi?

I blame Richard Attenborough. There’s nothing you can teach an American about what’s outside our borders that we can’t make fun of

In 2003, Maxim beat up an icon.

Related posts: Fatty fatwa, New evidence uncovered about Gandhi’s assassination, Promo’s pizza leaves bad taste in actor’s mouth, Gandhi didn’t wear Armani

Update: Ennis points out that pork chops are Southern food, like yams and greens. But pork is still laden with cultural connotations with which I’m sure Aaron McGruder is familiar, and he uses it for comic effect.

manish at 01:19 PM in Comics, Issues · 33 comment(s) · Direct link

October 30, 2005

The new stereotypes

Both ‘Dilbert’ and ‘Doonesbury,’ two of the most popular comic strips in America, just ran desi topics on the same day. The new stereotypes: both kinder and more boring than the old.

As usual, India and first-genners loom larger on the cultural radar, at least among these blunt instruments of cultural critique, than the second gen:

Absent… personal interaction with South Asians, people’s perception of South Asia itself determines how they treat us. [Link]

Click the pictures see the full strips.

manish at 07:25 PM in Comics · 130 comment(s) · 1 reader(s) linked · Direct link

September 28, 2005

Angry Eggplants!

Fifteen years ago, I fell for an oddly-coiffed Belgian boy named Tintin. I was Anna-Johnny-come-lately; the object of my affection had been loved by people a