I need sexy!
The most indelible image in the middling Cheeni Kum (Less Sugar) is Amitabh Bachchan wrapping his arms around the Qutab Minar’s iron pillar, screaming, ‘I need sexy, ma!’ at the uncaring sky. This is what age, and Freud, do to the vain.
Oh no he di’nt
I thought I walked out of this May-December […]
Listen to ‘Holdup,’ a collaboration between Apache Indian and Tamil raggamuffin singer Sasi the Don, who claims Tamil is better than Punjabi for ragga mixes because it’s more intrinsically rhythmic. At 1:20 he nearly proves it too:
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The hood surrounding the Apollo Theater in Harlem has a small pocket of Caribbean desis dishing roti, oxtail stew and cheap electronics. Whenever I’m in the neighborhood I usually hear chutney remixes of filmi music and bhangra.
Check out this soca mix of Daler Mehndi’s ‘Bolo Ta Ra Ra’ by Trini singer Bunji Garlin and Shamim:
Here’s […]
The trailer for Gypsy Caravan is making the rounds at New York indie theaters. The documentary about a New York gypsy music festival makes explicit the roma-flamenco-India connection, and the festival invited what a troupe of Rajasthani musicians. Captain Jack Sparrow has a cameo.
Founded in 1995 (originally named ‘Musafir’), [Maharaja] gathers musicians, poets and shamans […]
At the beginning of the Korean monster flick + dysfunctional family comedy Gwoemul (The Host), a desi bystander witnesses a beast in the Han River. ‘Aap Pakistan se hai? … Woh samudra se aya. (Are you from Pakistan? It came from the sea.)’ Then the flick shatters monster movie convention with a flourish, showing the […]
Today marks a year and a week since Ultrabrown put up its first post. Sadly, all your restraining orders had little effect
This model is the only thing in Central Park’s 24-hour Apple store which isn’t glossy and white. ‘Is anyone actually seized by the need to buy an iPod in the middle of the night?’ I asked.
‘No, it’s actually pretty dead.’
Amu, an indie film about the ‘84 massacre of Sikhs in Delhi, opens in NYC today and June 15th in L.A. Konkona Sen Sharma stars as a young Indian-American who visits Delhi and stumbles across the secret of her adoption against the backdrop of ‘84. It’s M. Night with a Molotov. The story behind the […]
So it isn’t just ‘Calcutta’ and ‘Bombay’ getting the postcolonial heave-ho
Check out the highlights of Penn Masala’s recent Bombay and Calcutta tour, set to their gorgeous original track ‘Aankhon Mein Tu Hai’:
Related posts: Ghee Lightning, Penn Masala
OMAHA, Neb. — A University of Nebraska-Omaha student took a job recently as a stripper for class credit. Jenny Heineman, a sociology student, said she wanted to bring sex workers out of the dark, so she felt she had to enter their world. Her thesis, “Gender and Work: An Ethnography of a Midwest […]
Noureen DeWulf (American Dreamz) plays ‘Nuff Said Expo Girl’ in Oceans 13. Paul Walia, a regular bit player on TV, is cast as a security technician.
There’s something about the lighting here which makes DeWulf look dropped in through pixidigitation, an update to the wide-eyed Sridevi in Chandni.
… my parents are from Pune, India, although I […]
What both Hindu and Muslim fanatics have in common: both are currently hounding women for accepting hugs.
The Pakistani tourism minister resigned yesterday after hardline Islamic clerics accused her of obscenity for hugging her instructor after a [quake relief] parachute jump… the government appeared to cave in to the demands of the militants…
[Nilofer] Bakhtiar told a […]
Knightley feeds an orphaned elephant at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. [Link]
An absurd Keira Knightley spread in Vogue (via Fashionista). Strapping designer wear on these undernourished babies is like throwing a JonBenét beauty pageant.
Aasif Mandvi weighs the situation and does a desi shoutout anyway on a Daily Show segment about the new immigration bill.
Stewart: You yourself were not born here, you were…
Mandvi: Brown? … But I’m from India. I’m tech support / cardiologist brown…
Audience: [Cheers…]
Mandvi: Shout out. Not dishwasher / parking attendant brown. And I say that with […]
Pream Anandarajah, clean cut and Toronto born, slides down low in the passenger seat. He looks cautiously over his right shoulder at a group of students gathered near his high school.
“That’s them,” he says, referring to the FOBs.
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I met singer-actress Meetu Chilana at the Amu premiere Monday night. Her music video above is a track for Hiding Divya, an indie flick about mental illness by the founder of Desipina. Chilana is a bubbly young’un (’My name means to yell!’), but she croons ‘Lost’ with the gravitas of a folk singer.
This track is […]
Christopher Hitchens went on Fox and called late televangelist Jerry Falwell an illiberal who made his money preaching superstition and bigotry (via Reddit). The Hitch-Hannity hissy-fit is priceless:
In remembrance, here are some of Falwell’s famously tolerant quotes:
“I think Mohammed was a terrorist. I read enough of the history of his life, written by both Muslims […]
The Daily Show tackled Katy, Texas, the Houston suburb which welcomed a new mosque with pig races next door:
Katy-ite 1: I personally don’t want the mosque here at all. I don’t want a mosque anywhere.
Katy-ite 2: Probably the major fear is that our kids are gonna have to go to school with them.
Katy-ite 3: Get […]
Aish and Norah, the Meryl Streeps of desi cinema, arrive at the My Blueberry Nights premiere at Cannes. Jones sports Jude arm candy which looks preternaturally like a young Jack Nicholson.