When we’re old and withered, will ‘Come to Me’ be to us what ‘Aaj Phir Jeene Ki Tamanna Hai’ was to the parental units?

Rafta, Rafta… (Slowly Slowly) is the first (relatively) big-budget desi play I’ve seen in New York, maybe the first ever. And that is notable in its own right. The production has enough funding to splash out on an eye-catching set. It’s a play, not a Bombay Dreams-style musical, though DJ Rekha contributed the bhangra. The […]

The narrator of Hanif Kureishi’s new novel Something to Tell You is Jamal. He is half Pakistani-half English, slim, sexy and successful. Before becoming an analyst of the Freudian variety, he directed pornos, was beaten up by his sister Miriam, murdered a man and had a nervous breakdown (not in that order so don’t look […]

Here are some key excerpts from Aravind Adiga’s excellent class revenge opus The White Tiger. On what fuels the Dickensian bitterness of the Indian underclass. How servants are kept in line:
He must have phoned his man in Laxmangarh… ‘He’s got a good family. They’ve never made any trouble… No history of supporting Naxals or other […]

Bodhi Art Gallery organises talks with reasonable regularity. It is generally sparsely attended. A good show is one where 80% of the chairs are occupied. Yesterday, critic Ranjit Hoskote was in conversation with Atul Dodiya, one of the few artists who can cheerfully call himself a figurative painter without any fear of being outdated, and […]

Licensing songs for movies is cool, and the Civic is virtually a Sri Lankan car. But Maya shilling for Bud Light is completely selling out. I mean, that swill is so weak it barely qualifies as beer:

(a.k.a. Harold and Kumar Go to Chai Castle)
After gorging on kati rolls this weekend, my cousin the orchestra conductor decided he just had to have some masala chai. I vaguely remembered a Midtown chaat house I’d been to once six years ago which began with the letter ‘A.’ We texted GOOGL and settled on Amma […]

The swashbuckling hero of the movie which scarred desi kids with monkey brains and Thuggees is actually named after India, via Columbus, Native Americans and the Hoosier state:
The state’s name means “Land of the Indians”, or simply “Indian Land”. The name dates back to at least 1800, when Indiana Territory was created, at which time […]

In this post about the Nargis biography Darlingji, I mentioned the splenetic Filmindia editor Baburao Patel, one of the most feared columnists of the 1950s. Well, here’s this inimitable gent again, holding forth on Roberto Rossellini’s affair with …

The White Tiger: Jai’s nailed it, Aravind Adiga’s novel is solid. Corrosive first person voice is like Animal’s People. A howl of anger, Richard Wright’s Native Son transported to Delhi. For anyone who’s wondered how what life as Indian underclass, as part of the ‘Darkness,’ the opposite of India Shining, is really like. Tips on […]

Completely missed this – apparently little Shirley Temple turned 80 a couple of days ago! Via the Bright Lights blog, here’s an excerpt from Graham Greene’s controversial review of the Temple-starrer Wee Willie Winkie from 1937:Infancy is her dis…

Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay sounds like a plot summary, but the titular escape actually happens at the beginning of the movie. The rest of the flick lurches between random sketches like a Broken Lizard movie, delighting in its transgressions. This movie is off the charts on gross-out and gratuitousness. There’s the epic […]

‘Mal De Mer’ by Rupa & the April Fishes is a free download for Zune owners this week, whch probably has something to do with it being April.
Zune focuses on indies because iPod has locked up the mainstream MP3 player market. It’s odd positioning for a behemoth like Microsoft. It’s also a funny switcheroo with […]

The jacket of Aravind Adiga’s debut novel The White Tiger carries a blurb by Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid, and reading the book it struck me that the narrative framework is similar to that of Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist. That novella took…

Longtime readers will be familiar with my sentiments on sari covers and mangoxotic titles. I approached my friend V.V. ‘Sugi’ Ganeshananthan’s new novel Love Marriage with some trepidation. Fortunately, the innards belie the sari wrapper. This is not curry lit.
I’ve got mixed feelings about this book — my loyalties lie more with its smart, personable […]

Kalpen Modi told a story on Conan O’Brien last night about a drunken brown guy who was angry because everyone now calls him Coo-mahr. Penn pointed out that was better than being called Uh-poo. That was his shout-out, and his exculpation.
Like Letterman with Aishwarya, Conan seemed to treat Penn with kid gloves, not knowing […]

An early version of the Monkey King makeup; the final is much more subtle

On one hand, current box office champ The Forbidden Kingdom has Jet Li in blond capuchin hair playing Sun Wukong, the mischievous, powerful Monkey King. He flies around mountaintops, battling baddies with his magical bowstaff. All that’s missing is Hanuman’s inflated cheeks.
On […]

Check out the title song from the discofabulous Yaadon Ki Baraat (1973), where polka dot shirts and checked dinner jackets merged and threw up an æsthetic. The dancers in minidresses and go-go boots prove Bollywood was every bit as skimpyscandalous back in the day.

One-hit wonder Vijay Arora passed away a year and two months back. […]

(Beta also means son in Hindi and is used fondly rather than formally)
Wyclef Jean wears tighty-whities. He can play the guitar with his mouth with the kind of dexterity that makes me think his wife is a very happy woman. He sweats like a pig, climbs like a monkey and will possibly one day regret […]

M.I.A.’s ‘Paper Planes’ anchors the trailer for Pineapple Express, a weed smuggler comedy by the Superbad crew. The trailer is sync’d to the gunshots and cash register samples in Maya’s track. She’s also licensed tracks for the B-movie War and a Honda ad.
Seth Rogen stars. James Franco plays against type as a long-haired stoner, like […]