Popular Desi Baby Names In the USA
The US Social Security Administration has released, on the eve of Mother's Day, their annual list of the top 1000 most popular baby names for the preceding year. Forget web searches and all that, this is what parents are actually naming their kids. In summary:
Emily has topped the list since 1996. Jacob has done so since 1999. Elizabeth returns to the top ten after a two year absence.
I was curious how many (if any) desi names made the list for 2007. So, I took a look and here's what I found on the boys' side:
510. Rohan
729. Arjun
749. Aditya
821. Nikhil
829. Samir
881. Pranav
958. Rishi
959. Arnav
Quite frankly, I was surprised to see so many. But perhaps if you think about proportions, 8 out of 1000 is 0.8%, roughly 1%, which is in line with the size of the desi diaspora in the USA. I'll have to look at the lists from previous years to see if there's been an uptick. One notable omission, as noted by the SSA themselves:
Although “American Idol’s” Sanjaya did not influence this year’s list, other young celebrities influenced the naming of American children.
Heh, heh. As for the girls, another surprise - I only found Maya at position 62. The other name that came close was Saniyah at 565. There were two others, "India" at 690 and "Karma" at 859 but those aren't names desi parents assign to their daughters, not that I've heard of anyway.
You can find the lists here.
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- May 10, 2008 10:22 AM // Permalink // General
CA Cash For Kal
In "Your lost cash just waiting for a reunion", San Jose Mercury News' Patty Fisher writes:
If you haven't checked the state's unclaimed property registry lately, you could be costing yourself some bucks. That utility deposit you didn't bother to get back when you moved, the safety deposit box you forgot to clean out, a gift certificate you didn't get around to using - they all could be listed at www.ClaimIt.ca.gov.The database includes millions of names, and billions of unclaimed dollars. Even if yours isn't there, it's great fun to search. Clint Eastwood has $300 in salary coming from MGM Studios - probably a rounding error. Lindsay Lohan has an outstanding legal award of $1,559.80. Steve Jobs can claim a $120 from an insurance company and Larry Ellison has $59.30 coming from Hertz. My neighbors Judy and Richard are due more than $200 from various insurance claims and deposits.
Call me voyeuristic, call me a good samaritan, whatever, I couldn't resist the urge to see whether any California company owed any money to the desi diaspora's finest. Of course, first I had to try my own name. Nothing. No overlooked rent deposit or gift certificate. After that initial search, I tried putting in some of the brighter names in the desi firmament. And was surprised to see some actually come up. Here's what I found:
Deepak Chopra
The web site came up with a couple of hits. I ignored the fellow living in the Bay Area and picked the entries with the Palos Verdes address. Here's what I found:
That's right. Allstate owes $48 to Dr. Chopra. Somehow, I doubt he'll be rushing to collect it anytime soon, flush as he is.
Another entry was this:
What kind of court settlement? The good doctor has been in the courts a fair amount but this amount of money is piffle, barely enough to buy one or two of his hardbacks. What could it be? Neighbors playing Van Halen too loud perhaps? The mind boggles.
Vinod Khosla
These were all for prescription overpayments, the well known (and exceedingly well off) venture capitalist presumably not needing to bother with insurance co-payments like the rest of us mere mortals.
Kal Penn
Paydirt! Kal Penn is owed a cool $5K for his acting services. I know brother is living large what with Harold and Kumar doing boffo box office but I am sure this is still not chump change territory. Hey Kal, throw me a 10% finders fee when you claim the money, will ya? :-)
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- May 7, 2008 9:26 PM // Permalink // Diaspora , General
A Book Of Epigrams
Family friend, Mike Lipsey's I Thought So: A Book of Epigrams, is now available on both Amazon and Barnes and Noble. It is, as the title indicates, a collection of pithy words of wisdom from Michael himself. Let me list some of my favorites here. Hopefully, that'll give you an idea of what the book contains:
What am I doing this weekend?
Must I always be doing?
Your house is thinking,
"These people too shall pass."
I see a crying infant in the face of the angry man.
We carry our ethnic heritage like an invisible costume.
Nonviolence works well against pacifists.
Jobs have grown wings.
We sink financially in order to rise socially.
Football is hard bodies colliding on the screen and soft ones sinking into the sofa.
We were told we were winning the Vietnam war until the last Americans were helicoptered off the roof of the embassy.
There are sections on Life, Wealth, Religion, Politics and more. All in all, a lovely collection of quick verbal pick-me-ups, particularly when you're feeling a little jaded with the world.
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- April 26, 2008 12:40 PM // Permalink // Books
Rice Rationing
While we're on the subject of rice, MSNBC reports:
BENTONVILLE, Ark. - Sam’s Club, the membership warehouse division of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., is limiting how much rice customers can buy because of what it calls “recent supply and demand trends,” the company said WednesdayThe broader chain of Wal-Mart stores has no plans to limit food purchases, however.
Sam’s Club said it will limit customers to four bags at a time of Jasmine, Basmati and long grain white rice. Rice prices have been hitting record highs recently on worries about tight supplies as part of broader global inflation in food costs.
Howls of outrage from the local "Passage To India" and "Lucky Pot Chinese" establishments were not included in this article. Probably because:
The warehouse chain caters heavily to small businesses, including restaurants. Spokeswoman Kristy Reed said she could not comment on whether the problem was caused by short supplies or by customers stocking up in anticipation of higher prices.
So gentle readers, the next time your Indian curry night cookout is ruined by lack of basmati, you know who's hoarding the grain.
The whole affair is sadly reminiscent of the Great Dal Shortage of 2006 when:
The Indian government's decision to ban the export of dal (lentils) has hit Indian Americans hard.The ban, imposed in June, has resulted in the commodity getting scarce in Indian grocery stores in the US, with prices almost doubling at some places.
"The minute (the ban) was announced, wholesalers put up the price," Jalil Hay, owner of an Indian grocery store in Stockton, California, told India New England , an ethnic newspaper. "(Prices) have almost doubled and tripled."
Ouch! Forget the recession, the lack of dal-bhaat (rice/lentils) is the one-two punch that's likely to hurt us Indian Americans the most.
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- April 23, 2008 4:02 PM // Permalink // Diaspora , Food
Annaprashan
The Wikipedia defines Annaprashan as:
a Hindu rite-of-passage ritual that marks an infant's first intake of food other than milk. The term annaprashan literally means "food feeding" or "eating of food".
and
Commonly referred to in English as First Rice, the ceremony is usually carried out when the child is about 6 months of age. (some Hindu communities do it later). It is an occasion for celebration, and extended family, friends and neighbours will be invited to attend. The mother or grandmother will prepare a small bowl of payesh (boiled rice, milk & sugar) which is blessed in a brief puja. The child will generally be held in the mother's lap, and a senior male family member (grandfather or uncle) will feed it a small spoonful of the payesh, to general celebration. Other members of the family then take turns to give the child a taste.
We actually held the ceremony a little early (just prior to Virj's fifth month). However, as you can see, he seemed pretty ready for solids. I would imagine a steady liquid diet of the breast milk variety for five months straight would have that effect.
The feeding ceremony is often followed with a game, in which the child is presented with a tray containing a number of objects. These will include a bangle or jewel (symbolising wealth), a book (symbolising learning), a pen (symbolising career) and a clay pot or container of earth/soil (symbolising property). The child's future direction and prospects in life are indicated by the object which it prefers to hold and play with.
Yep, he's all about the money. Or perhaps the dollar bill was the most succulent option on the tray.
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- April 15, 2008 11:05 PM // Permalink // Virj
200th Entry: Desi Jersey Mafia
This post marks the 200th entry on dishumdishum and I debated on how best to celebrate. An obvious thing to do would have been to list some of the better posts but I do that already as a sidebar feature called The Dishum Primer. Instead, I thought it would be fun to showcase an older piece of writing I am particularly proud of - the saga of the "Desi Jersey Mafia", a desi version of Spinal Tap, if you will. They would have been big in Bangladesh. Except they didn't really do Bangla Rock, you see. Apache Indian style dancehall and Digable Planets era hop hop was more their scene. The rap itself grew out of an exchange on the newsgroup alt.culture.us.asian-indian. You can find the early seed here. That was in April 1994, nearly fourteen years ago. Talk about dating yourself!
I didn't do any work on it for nearly a year until it came time to trot out some stuff for the annual Holi function at my grad school. With my partner in crime, Subra, we fashioned an entire narrative with verbal nods to A Tribe Called Quest, GangStarr and Das EFX. Yes, they were very big then. Given I was already mucking about with a high end Mac Quadra for my thesis work, it was a no brainer to actually record and create a track. I wish I had it lying around now to share but the files ended up in digital nirvana, sadly.
I remember being worried on the eve of the performance that the audience wouldn't be able to hear the words, so we passed out lyric sheets in advance. To no avail as it turned out. The whole thing fell a bit flat, at least by my standards. I consoled myself with thoughts of being too ahead of our time etc etc and went on to other things.
It wasn't until I began occasionally e-mailing out the lyrics that things started to happen. Somehow, one such missive triggered a chain e-mail reaction amongst desis in the Northeast - from what I understand, the usual comment was "check out this cool rap. Grad students in Ithaca seem to have entirely too much time on their hands!"
Then, in '99, I received the following e-mail from noted Asian American scholar Vijay Prashad:
You will no doubt be rather surprised to hear from me after all these years (admittedly only three years). My reason for writing is rather urgent, so forgive me for getting right to the point. I have a book that is in production (Karma of Brown Folk) with the University of Minnesota Press. In it, I use several lines from "Desi Like That" by your fine group, Desi Jersey Mafia. Of course, I give full credit to you and the group.
Indeed, Karma of Brown Folk
Enough of the preamble. Here's the whole thing. Enjoy:
Yo my name is Soam , that's foam with an S
them dudes like my duds, see I'm dressed for success
I higgedy diggedy my Mama, I'm as built as Bhima
taller than a tree and I sting with my degree
I drive a Honda Civic, but to me it's a Ferrari
Hemanta on the speaker - 'cause I'm a Bengali
but hey, 'nuff of me, I got work to do,
so let's go and chill with the rest of my crew
see my man Subra, he's smooth with the ladies
they call him every night, just to ride in his Mercedes
he takes them out to dinner, he makes them laugh and scream
When stuff is getting rough, he wakes up - "just a dream!"
And my homeboy Harish, what else can we say?
He's cooler than December, he's hot, hot like May
He's well educated, got a high school diploma
"What's two plus two?", "I'll leave you in a coma!"
Yo, I'm Suresh and I'm a supah jock
I read Byron, I pump iron, I'm built like a rock
some say I'm da brain, but I'm tha body too
I'm supah badd, hottah than vindaloo
But we be to rap what raga be to veena
'Cause we're cool like dat, we're cool like that, we're desi like that,
yeah we're desi (echo)
(Reporter)
Desi Jersey Mafia: really happening band
Tell us how they formed, please make us understand
Arre bhai aur bahen, sab shuno shuno
let me tell this story, that you really ought to know
Back in the days when I was a teenager
Dazed and confused was the status of my nature
Desi, pardesi what was I? "Just crazy?"
Easy said my daddy, stop sweatin' bout your future
Be hittin' all your books like there be no tomorrow
Straight A's, it pays, that'll drown your sorrow
"O bhai" said I, must give this s*** a try
So EE was to me, like the Nile was to the Pharaoh
The years be passing by and I wasn't getting younger
One day, hai hai hey, it hit me only stronger
No life, no wife, no culture, just this drive
Like vindaloo with no aloo, no way to kill my hunger
My brain was cast again in a frizzy stormy state
Then I got the answer and this I now relate
"Rap, all that, add some bhangra, it's so phat
Mix like begoon-bhartha, you'll down it just like that"
I be to rap what gulli be to danda
'Cause we're cool like dat, we're cool like that, we're desi like that,
yeah we're desi (echo)
(Reporter)
Desi Jersey Mafia, go on with your story
how you found each other, your way to fame and glory
Well I was low on dough, Harish was on the dole
Subra had been dissed, and Suresh was on parole
it didn't take too long, to make us understand
to get those checks and chicks, we had to form a band
We tried fusion-grunge, Suresh played the sitar
Harish beat the drums while Subra picked the guitar
Had to get a deal, with a record label
show them our stuff, showed them we were able
( Pseudo ragga rap interlude )
well that didn't work, but we had to get heard
I got my man Mark, to put in a good word
....................................Word
this did not work either, things were getting hectic
we had to change approach, try another tactic
it was no use, we had nothing to lose
we made him an offer, offer he couldn't refuse
We be to rap what raga be to veena
'Cause we're cool like dat, we're cool like that, we're cool like that
we're cool like that, we're desi like dat, we're desi like that, we're
desi like that, yeah we're desi(echo)
I'm Bengali like dat, charm the lerkis with my bhasha
"arre moshai kemon achen, ei to bhalobhasha"
but we have brains and Karl Marx, our russgoolas are sweet
I sing and dance like Rabindrasangeet
I'm Tamil like dat, I'm a Testarossa
I'm hot and I'm spicy, like masala dosa
I count like Ramanujam, you gotta give me dap
and here comes Badri, to blast you with his rap
I'm Punjabi like dat, I drink lotsa lassi
I also drink whisky, I'm not really fussy
I like tandoori roti and I dance like I'm langra
don't dare laugh at me, just check out my bhangra
I'm Gujrati like dat, no I'm not called a Patel
let me make things clear: I've never owned a motel
echoes of my name resound the Khyber Pass
you wanna know why, do the Dandiya Raas
We be to rap what Kapil be to cricket
'Cause we're cool like dat, we're cool like that, we're desi like that,
yeah we're desi (echo)
Well I've been to the east and I've been to the west
One thing is for sure, Desi girls are the best
We dig Madhuri like that, we dig Dimple like that
Juhi, Raveena and Sushmita like that
my girl she's no ho, don't take her name in vain
She's Lakshmi, she likes me, She's a devi just the same
And for the local girls, what more can we say
Parul, Anusha, Alpa, Make our day
Monami, Raguini, Rash and Deeya too
Mridula, Shonali, Dhati, Reena, Indu
and for those that dis us, you don't know what you're missing
come on Soam tell them - "It's all in the kissing"
if we left you out, and you want to let us know
we are new age guys, meet us past this show
We be to rap what Kama be to Sutra
'Cause we're cool like dat, we're cool like that, we're cool like that
we're cool like that, we're desi like dat, we're desi like that, we're
desi like that, yeah we're desi(echo)
Yeah, some of the references are really dated. Who remembers Digable Planets' "Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)" anyway? Or Dimple Kapadia? And yes, there are some real cringe worthy moments in there. But it still brings a smile to my face. Surely, that's worth something after all those years.
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- April 7, 2008 9:48 PM // Permalink // Diaspora , Humour
What's In A Name?
A little while back, I wrote about the naming process for our son, Virj, and I hoped:
Now, if everyone would only pronounce it properly :-)
I thought I was being facetious. Hard to go wrong with something so succinct, right? It's been four months now, so what's been our experience?
Amongst folks originating from the subcontinent there wasn't a problem. More or less perfect enunciation every time. However, for everyone else, particularly if they happened to have been born and brought up in the USA and had little or no exposure to Indian culture, it was more hit and miss. Correct pronunciation is "veerj" with stress on the "e" sound. But we were equally likely to get "verge" as in parents on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I exaggerate but imagine our plight. The early months of parenthood are particularly brutal - add to that regrets about picking a name that I thought was bulletproof, but one that turned out to have loopholes regardless - it certainly doesn't help.
At this juncture, we found the following skit from the hit BBC show Goodness Gracious Me particularly calming. The sketch, which came out around 1998 or so, is eerily prescient. We have Jonathan moving from the UK to join a firm in India where they have trouble with his name:
In today's mobile, intertwined, economically shifting world, there's really no guarantee our son will choose or even necessarily be able to live in the USA. Consequently, we tried to pick a name for all seasons and continents. On the whole, we're pleased.
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- March 29, 2008 3:08 PM // Permalink // Diaspora , TV , Virj
Devi Brown: Director's Note
We're in the process of assembling a press kit for Devi Brown. The Director's Note is something that took me a while to put together. It's work in progress and subject to change but thought I would share regardless.
Devi Brown grew out of a simple observation: '70s blaxploitation and Bollywood masala movies are long lost twins separated at birth. Perhaps not identical twins, but certainly fraternal. Consider the similarities: over the top costumes. Sticking it to The Man from an Angry Young Man. Melodrama by the pound. Vavavoom heroines. Nutty sidekicks. And last but not least, the audio. Whatever the surface trimmings, the pulsating greasy funk at the core of soundtracks on both sides of the world knew no boundaries. Small wonder then beat producers, tired of digging in their crates of blaxploitation LPs, have now increasingly started to mine Bollywood soundtracks of the same period.
Speaking of music creation, Devi Brown is our attempt to apply some of the hip hop production aesthetics to filmmaking. The time honored approach to producing a hip hop track is to start with a collection of samples from various sources, process/chop them, overlay drums and other instruments as necessary, and weld into a cohesive whole via a rapped narrative. Similarly, source material for Devi Brown was assembled from a number of Bollywood films of the 70s and early 80s. These clips or rather "samples" were then trimmed, sequenced, processed, overlaid with additional soundtrack elements from blaxploitation classics, and topped with an appropriate voiceover serving as narrative. The final product is best described as a masala mashup.
Our approach allows us to deconstruct the original source material and have a little fun with some Bollywood conventions of the time. The heroine, often relegated to a side role, now becomes the centerpiece. The hero becomes the villain. Slow expositions are dramatically accelerated; many hours worth of movies are now packed into five minutes consisting only of the action stuff, the "good parts" version, as it were. Whether our effort is successful, whether something coherent has emerged from all this mashery, is ultimately up to the viewer to discern. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did putting it together. If not, at least it will be over quickly!
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- March 26, 2008 8:42 AM // Permalink // Devi Brown
Copywood Part I
Bollywood plagiarism or "inspirations" form a recurrent topic in the desi blogosphere. Try this, this or this as recent examples. Their ire is understandable for in this age of globalization, there is no place to hide. Filmi producers might think they are cutting corners by lifting entire plots and scene layouts from elsewhere but with plentiful online video, BitTorrent and relatively large overseas following of Bollywood, more and more members of the audience are already familiar with the source material. The whole practice is objectionable for several reasons:
- The obvious: it cheats the original creators and content producers.
- It deprives desi writers out of a living. Why would anyone want to pay a writer when source material is only a DVD away?
- It deprives the audience. Imagine this: you've forked over your hard earned money to watch latest desi blockbuster X only to find you've seen it all before in Hollywood indie sleeper hit Y. To make matters worse, Y's themes and plots have been "Indianised" to the point where the femme fatale actually gets caught as opposed to ending up in a retired private island somewhere. After all, in Filmisthan, the baddies must always pay.
Small wonder, interest is growing in the lack of copyright enforcement in India as this recent report from National Public Radio, Bollywood's copycat film industry, illustrates:
Rajiv Masand: I also think that in the West, I don't think they realize to what extent the borrowing is happening. Increasingly you see entire screenplays literally unfolding exactly like the original film, and every now and then you'll see films that are just dialogues translated down to the last word.Sometimes it's more than dialogue. Anjum Rajabali is a successful Mumbai screenwriter. He says he's been on sets where everything was copied directly from a video of a foreign film.
Anjum Rajabali: There was a video monitor, and the VHS was actually playing. The angles of the camera would be taken directly from that. The actors would actually watch, and say, "OK, this is how you want me to do it? Fine." Camera angles, lighting, properties...
...All copied. And film songs, of which there are several per Bollywood film, might not always be 100 percent original, either.
[MUSIC: "THOIA THOING"]
That's R. Kelly's tune "Thoia Thoing." I think that's how it's pronounced.
[MUSIC: "GELA GELA"]
...And that's a song called "Gela Gela," from the Bollywood film "Aitraaz."
Take a bow Adnan Sami/Himesh Reshammiya ("Aitraaz" music director/singer). Your music was piped into a whole lotta speakers in the USA just now. But not in the way you imagined it. So, what can be done about this?
Gagliano: Does anybody point this out in media or fans, anybody?Karthik: They do, but nobody cares.
Except, well, you'd think the original artists would care. And according to Indian intellectual property lawyer Praveen Anand, intellectual property laws are very strong -- yet no Indian filmmakers have been taken to court.
Praveen Anand: There are lots of them which have copied concepts and a lot of detail -- clear infringements of Hollywood films. But somehow, Hollywood producers have not come forward to file cases and test the proposition.
Small wonder then desi bloggers are reduced to fantasizing about how best to punish perpetrators. In particular, consider this genius piece from greatbong where a particularly noxious fate awaits Sanjay Gupta, director of Zinda, a pretty gratuitous Oldboy ripoff:
But where is he now? A small room with one television set, a rack full of DVDs—it is obvious to him he has been kidnapped.But by whom? He had given the overseas rights to Bhai, sought the “blessings” of the Balasaheb–in all discharged all the duties of a Mumbai director/producer. And yet why is he in this solitary room with just a TV set , DVDs and a plate of pao bhaji inserted through a hole in the door?
He breaks down. Pleading with his unknown captor to let him go. But noone replies to his anguished cries. He only gets regular meals of the same pau bhaji and nothing else. The TV tells him about the outside world—-and then there are the DVDs. Realizing he can do nothing else and besides he always made films based on DVDs, Sanjay Gupta starts watching these movies one by one. Putting the time to good use—he thinks.
Aaah what a treasure trove. He starts making copious mental notes of which movies to copy once he gets out, how to “Indianize” it and how to pass off each of them as his creations. But he knows not when he shall get out—if at all.
From time to time, a strange tune plays (he notes in his mind to copy that tune once he gets out), his room fills with noxious gas—the kind one smells after one too many bean burritos and he collapses. When he comes to, he finds he has been shaved, bathed and his DVDs replenished with new ones.
A year passes. And another. On the TV he sees all the movies he had plans of Indianizing being remade one by one by his one-time friends—Manjrekar, Ramgopal Verma and suchlike. All his babies being taken away from him in front of his own eyes and Sanjay Gupta powerless—confined in this hellhole. He breaks down, tries slashing his wrists with a extras DVD (the 2nd disc noone watches) but his evil captor wont even let him die.
In greatbong's fervid imagination, Gupta's tormentor ultimately turns to be Chan Wook Park, the director of OIdboy, taking revenge on the wholesale pilfering of his work. The whole thing is great. Check it out. As for real life, there is hope yet. From the NPR segment again:
Anjum Rajabali: There is no doubt it'll change. I mean, economics will ensure that it'll change. Hollywood studios have begun investing in Indian productions as of the last six to eight months, in a very big way. There's a big market -- we're talking about one billion captive eyeballs in India. Hollywood studios would like to cash in on that. Now, they might also want their own earlier successful films adapted. But if somebody else has already done it without paying them anything, they will stop that.
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- March 20, 2008 10:33 PM // Permalink // Bollywood
American Dream Irony
With all the recent news of instability in the US financial system (consider today's news of JP Morgan purchasing rival Bear Stearns for the laughable price of $2/share) contributing to the all round malaise felt by many, I found the following picture particularly telling:
Bread Line During the Louisville Flood, Kentucky, 1937
My intention is not to be apocalyptic. But it's good to remind ourselves.
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- March 16, 2008 8:12 PM // Permalink // Politics
Link Love
Props to Nirali for making us one of their daily delicious picks. We can always use the link love. I first came across Nirali when trying to do a dd entry on Mindy Kaling and Vali Chandrasekaran - desi writers on hot comedy shows The Office and My Name Is Earl - and saw they had written a most wonderful piece already. Great stuff. Thanks and keep spreading the dishum!
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- March 14, 2008 9:21 PM // Permalink // Diaspora
Shooting By Docuwallah
As a film, I found Shootout At Lokhandwala, to be rather meh. The only new thing it really does, at least by Bollywood standards, is weaving flashbacks into a present day narrative via having certain police officers recount the events leading up to the shooting in front of their superior. If anything, I found the title to be far more memorable than the film itself. However, it looks like there was a behind the scenes documentary that might actually be really interesting. Andrew O'Hehir lists his top discoveries of the recently concluded South By Southwest Film Festival and amongst them is:
"Shot in Bombay"This fast-paced, immersive documentary from London-based American Liz Mermin (whose last film was the peculiar and compelling "Beauty Academy of Kabul") plunges you into the off-kilter chaos of Bollywood filmmaking, behind the scenes at an atrocious-looking action-adventure based on an infamous 1991 Mumbai shootout between cops and gangsters. The film's star, Sanjay Dutt -- a beloved Indian cinema icon run slightly to seed -- is himself under indictment on a weapons charge that's dragged through the courts for 13 years, and the crew spends more time with Dutt's double than with him in person. Mermin navigates between the film and the real-life crime story behind it, between Dutt's legal problems and his lengthy troubled-heartthrob career, with remarkable flexibility and sharp, dry humor. (Here's director Apoorva Lakhia, after every take, no matter how bad it is: "Cut! Mind-blowing! Let's move on!")
Mind blowing! I love it! Reminds me of John Cleese's clueless Scottish director from Monty Python's "Scott of the Antarctic" sketch:
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- March 13, 2008 8:08 PM // Permalink // Bollywood , Film
Ciabatta Malpoa
What do you do you if you have a bunch of Ciabatta bread from Costco lying at the bottom of the refrigerator occupying valuable space? Sadly, I am the only one who took a liking to this product in its original state and I vastly overestimated my appetite for it. Luckily, my mother-in-law devised a plan: convert it to a Bengali sweet called malpoa. The results were delightful and I asked her for the recipe.
It's quite simple:
- soak bread in milk to soften
- fry in vegetable oil for crispness
- dip in sugar syrup - but not too much, just enough for the sugar to seep in
- set aside to cool
Apparently, a variant of this recipe is also known as Bombay Toast.
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- March 8, 2008 7:28 PM // Permalink // Bangla , Food
Diaspora vs Avant Garde
In an interview with the Guardian, Turkish-German filmmaker Fatih Akın has this to say about his audience, in particular the Turkish diaspora vs those in Turkey itself:
This can make pleasing everyone a bit tricky: his films tend to meet with a better reception in Turkey itself than among the emigres, perhaps because any uprooted traditionalists are more liable to be rubbed up by Akın's unvarnished, street-level portraits. He sees it as purely a matter of numbers, the same problem faced by any director working outside the mainstream: "It's just the avant-garde who like my films. In Turkey, you have 60 million people and an avant-garde of a couple of hundred thousand. But in Germany, you have just 2.5 million. Most came here for economic reasons and work, and they're not from well-educated circumstances - so the audience for my films is probably only 2,000 to 3,000."
This is a challenge faced by any diaspora filmmaker. Take South Asia - are desi diaspora films likely to do better amongst NRIs in the USA or in India directly? NRIs tend to be better educated, yet their tastes tend to stick to whatever fare they were seeing back in India. However, those in India are likely to be more adventurous. Akin's argument about the sheer numbers making an avant garde audience possible even more the case here. Lack of box office numbers and the weak rupee prevent my listing any diaspora films that did better in India than abroad though. Perhaps Hyderabad Blues?
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- February 19, 2008 10:47 AM // Permalink // Diaspora , Film
Benny Lava And Globalization
In this day and age of easy multimedia dissemination, there's no real place to hide. On the 25th anniversary of Michael Jackson's Thriller, I went hunting for evidence of its influence on desi dance and Bollywood on YouTube. If anything, I found the South Indian film industry to be far more overt in their "homage." But globalization is a two way street and one particularly egregious copy of Michael's moves, once intended for a regional Indian film audience, is now available for all and sundry. In fact it was a huge viral video hit. By now you must have seen it already but here goes anyway:
Now, here's the part about the two way street: after it gained in popularity, YouTube users began taking the video and adding their own twist. Like farts. Or splicing in the original Thriller video such that you can now see the desi version with Jackson warbling on the soundtrack juxtaposed against Michael dancing with the audio from the Tamil soundtrack. The latter actually works better, IMHO:
The best remix, however, was done by popular YouTube prankster, buffalax. He added subtitles, not intentionally bad translations a la Wayne's World, but vaguely phonetically accurate transliterations with hilarious results:
This was a big hit by itself, garnering over 2 million views. Interested, I dug into buffalax's back catalog. He's done Punjabi bhangra as well (Daler Mehndi's video for Tunak Tunak but his greatest hit was for a dance sequence from South Indian star Prabhu Deva. It's a scene from the movie Pennin Manathai Thottu. Entitled Crazy Indian Video .. Buffalaxed, this clip was a monster YouTube hit, garnering around 3.7 million impressions:
As you see in the opening credits, Buffalaxed has no idea about the context of the original video, nor does he care. His is a strictly phonetic deconstruction of the Tamil lyrics and it's brilliant. Blogger Pramodh writes:
Mike Sutton is a 24 year old dude from Ohio. His hobby is to find some foreign videos in YouTube and make up the lyrics just the way they might sound in English. The twist is that he makes the lyrics hilarious. And he calls himself Buffalax in YouTube. On August 18 2007 he relased a video and called it a "Crazy Indian Video Buffalaxed!" And in a few months its popularity in the internet went up so much that Urban Dictionary decided to add the term Benny Lava in their Lingo. So far it had 2+ Million views and still going strong.
Searching for views on Benny Lava, I found an interesting trend: bloggers (by and large non South Asian) and YouTube commentators found it to be hilarious. But some also noted their enjoyment of the actual dancing in the video itself. An interesting way of crossing over: come for the humor, stay for the moves. Pramodh adds:
Prabhu Deva the actor in the video is now known as Benny Lava all over the internet. Yesterday I was having a conversation with a friend who studies in Ohio. She said that some of the students performed the Benny Lava dance in her school.
This subtitling approach by buffalax has inspired others but by and large, it seems to be a one trick pony. Buffalax's recent efforts in other languages haven't really garnered anywhere near as many hits. Still, it's another example of the ebb and flow across cultural divides that a megabazaar like YouTube can produce.
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- February 15, 2008 1:45 PM // Permalink // Bollywood , Dance , Diaspora , Humour , India
The Newborn
I came across this poem by C Day Lewis, apparently written on occasion of the birth of his son, Daniel Day Lewis. Here are some excerpts:
The Newborn
This mannikin who just now
Broke prison and stepped free
Into his own identity--
Hand, foot, and brow
A finished work, a breathing miniature--
Was still, one night ago,
A hope, a dread, a mere shape we
Had lived with, only sure
Something would grow
Out of its coiled nine-month nonentity.
:
:
This morsel of man I've held--
What potency it has,
Though strengthless still and naked as
A nut unshelled!
:
:
We time-worn folk renew
Ourselves at your enchanted spring,
As though mankind's begun
Again in you.
This is your birthday and our thanksgiving.
- From Pegasus and Other Poems by C. Day Lewis
Poetry aside, it's been two months now, so what have we learned about parenthood? Let me list five things I had next to no idea about:
- It's tough on the mother, particularly if she's breastfeeding. During the hustle and bustle of pregnancy, it's easy to lose sight of the challenges thereafter. It's too easy to focus on the delivery. If anything, the real fun starts after the baby is born. Three hour feeding cycles can get exhausting very fast!
- I love the way Virj throws his hands in the air when I set him down quickly. Apparently, it's called the Moro Reflex and is normal in newborn infants. It makes him look like a Hare Krishna member.
- Similarly, rooting and grasping relfexes whereby the kid will look for a nipple to suck when pressed against a chest, any chest .. ahem .. or will clutch anything that comes his way, particularly our fingers.
- Oh the sweet sweet sounds of a burp! 'nuff said!
- Mylicon. Why does it have to be so expensive? Welcome to the Baby Industrial Complex (tm)!
On the whole, it's exhausting work but I can already feel our perspectives on life changing and for the better.
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- January 21, 2008 2:48 PM // Permalink // Virj
Designing A Denzel Poster
Flickr user littletinycowboy has analyzed all the Denzel Washington movie posters in existence so that you don't have to. His findings:
1) The bigger the head, the better.2) Brown and gold color scheme. Red if you must.
3) Full body shots should show Denzel doing nothing in particular.
4) Two facial expressions to choose from:
--- a)Confused--- b)Badass
5) Vague movie title.
Too funny!
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- January 11, 2008 3:59 PM // Permalink // Film
Pyaare Posters II
Happy New Year everybody! There were a couple more posters I wanted to share, so here goes. First, we have David Fincher's Zodiac. It's become cliche for any Bay Area related visual to feature the Golden Gate bridge in some way, shape or form. We've seen the bridge in twilight, at night, in the morning and various points in between. Yet, the poster for Zodiac, which takes place in San Francisco, still manages to take a familiar landmark and imbue it with a sense of atmospheric dread. Very fitting for a film about a serial killer.
On a much lighter and saucier note, here's the poster for The Rules of Attraction. Ideal if your idea of fun involves stuffed toys in various compromising positions. Yet, given that the film concerns itself with the shenanigans of over-hormonized students at a New England college, pictures of bunnies getting it on are not entirely inappropriate!
The third poster, Shaft In Africa>, is more straightforward and straight outta the blaxploitation movement. Sticking it to the Man indeed!
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