Bollywood Dreams

The Charlotte Observor had a piece earlier this month on a Bollywood movie that was partly shot in North Carolina, and that holds a very special place in my heart (keep reading). The plot? Apparently it chronicles the ups and downs of a race car driver's career. I'm not sure if the makers of this movie got the idea from Talladega Nights, but both of the movies were partly shot at Rockingham Parkway in North Carolina and copying Hollywood does seem to be a common tactic in Bollywood. The article introduces the world of Bollywood to its North Carolinian readers by quoting the following graphic in Businessweek:

Many Indians, myself included, wouldn't be too surprised to see that Bollywood makes more movies and sells more tickets a year than Hollywood. However, this graphic, as well as the common refrain about the size of Bollywood, is apparently wrong. Bollywood refers to Hindi movies made in the Bombay film industry, the largest in India. However, the above-graphic refers to movies made in the entire Indian film industry, including Tollywood (Telegu language film industry in Andhra Pradesh) and Kollywood (Tamil Cinema). Bollywood, Tollywood, and Kollywood (for the record, I really hate these dumb names) each make about 150 and 200 films a year, and all of the Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu films together account for only 60% of films made in all of India, as suggested in this graphic. In his blog, Amardeep Singh points out this and other surprising facts that he gleaned from a recent book about the Indian film industry.

Back to "Don't Worry, Be Happy." The article in the Charlotte Observor also charmingly compares the eating styles of the American-born racing crews (fried chicken, baked beans) to the Indian cast and crew (spicy!) before making a brief political comment:

OK, by now you've realized a bit of irony about this movie project:
It is a case of "in-sourcing," bringing jobs and money from India to the Carolinas.

and then an erroneous one:

But more than anything, it might speak to the popularity of racing, worldwide.

I doubt it.

The article ends with a quote by an Indian-born North Carolinian film intern named Setu Raval who seems lovestruck by the movie's hero, Saif Ali Khan:

"I didn't believe he could really be here," says Raval, a filmmaking student at N.C. School of the Arts in Winston-Salem. "I just couldn't believe it. Not until I saw him in person. And then, there he was. So very, very handsome."

Anyway, the reason I'm writing about this movie is because it features not only veteran pin-up Rani Mukherjee and up-and-coming heart throb Saif Ali Khan, but also yours truly. While touring India a few months ago, myself and a friend were asked to be extras on a film that was supposed to be set in America whose working title was "Don't Worry, Be Happy". Actually, my white friend was asked to be an extra, and I was told that they already had more brown people than they knew what to do with. I went anyway and both of us were made to dance around on the balconies of fire escapes on a set that looked vaguely like a stereotype of 1980s Manhattan for about 12 hours while Rani and Saif shot a minute and a half of a music video. When this movie gets ready to break box office records, look for me at the end of a dance sequence, where I'll be visible directly behind and above Saif with my fist pointing towards the sky screaming "Yeah!!"

The Future Governor of Texas

Many Texans know that the Texas governor has limited powers compared to the governors of other states, partly because he or she has to share executive power with several other elected officials. However, the current governor, Rick Perry, put himself right in the middle of the Texas redistricting fiasco by calling special sessions of the legislature to push through the new congressional district map and vetoed more pieces of legislation in one session than any previous Texas governor. He also helped cut taxes by spending nothing on anything, making Texas one of the stingiest, if not the the stingiest state in the country. The governor before Rick Perry became President of the Country. I think, therefore, that this is a race worth paying attention to, even if you're not from Texas.

Media outlets have recently been making a big fuss over Kinky Friedman, an independent candidate whose facebook support group is entitled "He's Not Kinky, He's my Governor." I, like many other young people, became interested in Kinky's flaunting of the Red-Blue divide (he is for prayer in schools as well Gay Marriage--he says that Gay people have the right to be 'as miserable as the rest of us'). I joined Kinky's facebook group and read interviews about him and the 'issues' section of his website, kinkyfriedman.com. His appeal is immediately recognizable: a) he is not a politician, b) he is politically incorrect (very, very much so), c) he likes animals, d) he seems pretty intelligent (he was in Plan II honors at UT-Austin as an undergrad, he writes novels and had a column in Texas Monthly), e) he wants to make Willie Nelson, Texas legend and champion of Biodiesel Fuels, his energy czar--seriously, f) he has made raising teachers' salaries one of his top priorities.

I have a few concerns, however. First of all, in an interview with Ruminator Magazine he stated that he's a fan of Bush's foreign policy:

Well, actually, I agree with most of his political positions overseas, his foreign policy. On domestic issues, I’m more in line with the Democrats. I basically think he played a poor hand well after September 11. What he’s been doing in the Near East and in the Middle East, he’s handling that well, I think.

He likes what Bush has done overseas? That's just messed up. Second of all, his political incorrectness is kind out of out of control. I understand that this makes him popular. But might it also make him a kind of a nutjob? Judge for yourself. Here are a few quotes, not from jokes or books, but from interviews (or defended in interviews) after he stated he was running for governor:

If you don't love Jesus, go to hell
My immigration policy is 'Remember the Alamo'
'Negro' is a charming word.
[regarding Sexual Predators]: Throw them in prison and throw away the key. And make them listen to a Negro talking to himself.

Well no one's accusing him of being too PC, but some of that seems a little...intense. Regarding the immigration policy quote, he once advocated having five Mexican generals patrol the Mexican border by giving them each a trust fund and deducting 5,000 dollars for each Mexican that gets across. Creative yes, but seems kind of out there. He was serious. I think he's backed off of that approach now and his official immigration stance seems pretty in line with Bush's, and includes Amnesty for many illegal immigrants already in the country as well as a guest worker program. This policy is really different from the very tough stance he promised to take early on in the campaign, which brings me to another point: How are we supposed to know what Kinky is actually thinking? He says something crazy and then his campaign staff tones it down or changes it altogether for his official policy. I guess it's a sign he's learning the political ropes and getting caught up in the game.

Anyway, for those of you who think that all of this is moot because Kinky doesn't stand a chance, check out these latest polls:

Rick Perry (R): 34.8 %
Chris Bell (D): 23.1
Kinky Friedman: 22.7
Carole Keeton Strayhorn: 9.6

Considering that the non-Perry vote is split THREE ways, Neither Bell, the democrat from Houston, nor Kinky are doing too badly. And there's a lot of time left. The practical problem with Kinky taking down Perry right now is that many of the people who aren't on his side yet are actually against him winning. He's the kind of guy you either love or hate. Bell has an advantage because many of the people who aren't on his side just don't know who he is yet. Bell's voting record is really liberal...I bet democrats for Kinky are going to start looking at Bell more closely soon, and if that happens, a democrat could end up governing Texas this year. Methinks that would be even weirder than Kinky winning!

Perhaps not weirder than Chris Bell's creepy ad, however.

Panicky Brits

Driving while black got you down? Try flying while (South) Asian in Engand. I say England, because I don't think the situation is nearly as bad in the United States. Two young 'Asian'--i can't stand the British word for all brown people--students from Manchester made it through airport security and boarded a plane bound for Manchester from Malaga before the rest of the passengers heard them speak what sounded like Arabic (I'm guessing it was Hindi or Urdu, neither of which sound anything like Arabic... and so what if it was Arabic?). Then, the passengers refused to allow the plane to leave until the two boys were removed from the plane. One passenger described what she saw to the Daily Mail:

"The plane was not yet full and it became apparent that people were refusing to board. In the gate waiting area, people had been talking about these two, who looked really suspicious with their heavy clothing, scruffy, rough, appearance and long hair.

"Some of the older children, who had seen the terror alert on television, were starting to mutter things like, 'Those two look like they're bombers.'

"Then a family stood up and walked off the aircraft. They were joined by others, about eight in all. We learned later that six or seven people had refused to get on the plane."

..."While we were waiting, everyone agreed the men looked dodgy. Some passengers were very panicky and in tears. There was a lot of talking about terrorists."

This is absurd. Looks like the failed attempt to terrorize last week wasn't a complete failure after all. Think this is an isolated incident involving a bunch of exceptionally paranoid individuals? Think again:

Websites used by pilots and cabin crew were yesterday reporting further incidents. In one, two British women with young children on another flight from Spain complained about flying with a bearded Muslim even though he had been security-checked twice before boarding.

There are brown Muslim people everywhere. A very, very, very small percentage of them are planning to blow up planes. Perhaps that percentage is growing in England, but I can't be sure. Perhaps it is growing precisely because of how alienated some of them are made to feel by the rest of their society on a daily basis. I took a trip to Birmingham last year and was, for the first time in a really long time, hurled vocal racist insults by someone who thought that I and others in my family were "Pakis." Obviously I can't claim that this is representative behavior in any way whatsoever, but in all of my time in the United States and Canada I've faced nothing even remotely as overtly racist as that single remark (once, during my time in Sydney, Australia, some drunk girls on the street kept calling me a curry muncher. They were angry because one of 'my people' wouldn't let them in a bar. She pointed across the street at the Coogee Bay Hotel's bouncer, who was a very large man of Maori descent. The incident was too funny for me to be offended...plus, it made me hungry for curry).

I have support for my observation in a New York Times article in Monday's issue entitled Pakistanis Find U.S. an Easier Fit than Britain, which compares the Pakistani community in Chicago, which has integrated nicely with other communities in the area, with Pakistani communities in England that, according to the article, have not been able to assimilate culturally, and that, additionally, are worse off economically than their American counterparts. I'm not so sure if this comparison is relevant, or if England's failure to integrate their 'Asians' is really a cause of terror plots. Gautam Malkani, author of Londonstani, wrote an op-ed in the Times in which he tries to undermine the claim that young Asians are left out of British mainstream culture at all.

Wherever the blame lies for the alleged terrorist attempt in England, the British government and members of its media should make sure to counter the widespread and self-fulfilling belief that Muslims are more likely than anyone else to commit acts of terrorism. Acting as if this is true will further alienate young men like the two pictured above and create extremists where there previously were none. The Bush administration doesn't help anything by declaring a war on 'Islamic Fascism' (why even say Islamic there? Why was 'Christian' not mentioned when describing the terrorists from Northern ireland), but at least Bush did a fairly decent job after 9/11 of repeatedly suggesting that Islam is a peaceful religion and that American Muslims were just as American as anyone else.

As seen on Sepia Mutiny.

On several occasions in the past, during discussions of the holocaust or Nazism, I've mentioned to my friends that the Swastika is an ancient and sacred symbol of Hinduism whose peaceful origins far outdate the coopting of the symbol by the Nazi Party of Adolf Hitler. Anyone who has visited India in recent or non-recent times can attest to its display (usually with dots in each of the four quadrants) in temples across the country. None of this is done with any approval of or tribute to Nazi Germany or the killing of millions of Jews across Europe. "Swastika" is a Sanskrit word. It originated in India and the Nazis stole it, un-fair and un-square.

In the past few weeks however, it has been appearing in Navi Mumbai (see: Bombay's suburbs) in its newer, more genocidal connotation in the form of a new restaurant known as "Hitler's Cross." Here's what the owner had to say to Reuters:

"We wanted to be different. This is one name that will stay in
people's minds," owner Punit Shablok said.

"We are not promoting Hitler. But we want to tell people we
are different in the way he was different."

Hmm.... While it's true that establishing authoritarian control over Germany and carrying out a genocide of Jews and other minorities is one way to be different, I'm not sure it's the specific path I'd take as a Bombay restaurant owner in 2006.

Understandably, the Jewish community in India is a little miffed. What I'm miffed about, however, is the total lack of outrage being shown by other communities in India. Indian politics is about balancing the (hyper)sensitivities of members of all of its religions. This is, for better or for worse, how its definition of secularism is advanced. While I was in India a few months ago, I remember Muslim groups backing very vocal Christian groups to get the DaVinci Code banned from theaters in several states (aww, religions working together for the advancement of unncessary censorship!). And yet, all of the outrage directed at this restaurant owner is being shown by a handful of bloggers instead of the Indian media or its normally obnoxious Christian, Hindu, or Muslim groups.
I would like to see at least one Hindu group express outrage, if not for the injuring of the sentiments of their Jewish brethren (no matter how small their numbers), then at least at the desecration of its own ancient, sacred, peaceful symbol.

Welcome to the first post of my first blog. 98.9% of all blogs fail to last for more than two posts. This blog will be different, however. How? Simple. Let me begin by, first of all, acknowledging that the above-mentioned statistic is false. Like most statistics in the world, it was fabricated for a blogger's own ignominious ends. Why am I admitting this so soon? I intend to begin my blog on the right foot - the foot of Truth. Second, I intend to revolutionize the art of blogging. Third, a little bit about myself: I am a 23-year old Indian-American male who has been admitted into Law School, but has casually informed the law school that I am taking a year off to do absolutely whatever (including blogging) and go absolutely wherever (including India and Austin, TX, so far) springs to mind. Fourth, my posts will, from here on out, be far more coherent than this one. This is my manifesto. Please help me stick to it.