The lure of Bollywood is strong–paved with rhythmic dance beats, glimmering clothes, and fairy tale romance, Bollywood has been making inroads into the West for some time. And yet, I didn’t realize quite how popular Bollywood was amongst non-Indians until a couple of months ago, when I attended a packed dance class at a local gym.Despite my innate awkwardness or because of it I’ve taken a lot of dance classes. I enjoy them because they’re fast paced and, contrary to expectation, don’t require a lot of coordination–they’re about getting fit, having fun, and learning something new. And Bollywood dancing is known for its calorie-torching cardio–most dances have enough booty-shaking to keep even the most dedicated chocolate fiend svelte.
@ The NRI: Getting Down Bollywood Style – Dance Classes
February 2, 2011 By 1 Comment
Indianness: Culture or Religion? @ The NRI
January 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment
There are so, so many things that are difficult about raising a kid–it’s more than snuggles and reading, more than copious numbers of demon stink-filled diapers (thank goodness). The hardest part for me, I think (aside from sleep-deprivation, that is), is that while I’m helping Mir discover who he is, I’m still not sure of who I am. Some time ago, I wrote about trying to figure out our Indianness for The NRI–and my worries about cultural misappropriation.
I grew up in a Muslim-Catholic household. We celebrate Easter, Christmas, Eid-ul-Fitr, Eid-ul-Adha, and Ramadan (though only my father fasts). At Christmas, my parents literally deck their halls–tinsel and ornaments overrun the house, half a dozen animatronic Santas carol in the living room, and a Christmas train chugs through a snowy wonderland on the dining room table. We’re a marvelously mixed-up family, and I love it. But my father’s family, the Indian side, has only two Hindus, both of whom married into the family. Our Indianness is a Muslim-Indianness; I have little knowledge of Hinduism beyond recognizing pictures and statuary of Kali, Shiva, Ganesh, Krishna, and Brahma.
Hindu Gods do hold a certain fascination for me. I’ve always been interested in polytheistic religions, and I’ve read widely about the Greek, Roman, and Norse traditions. I’ve read many myths to Mir; we even have a few mythology picture books. But Hinduism is a living religion. If I read stories about Krishna to Mir, am I simply reading him a story, or am I stealing someone else’s belief system…
Where Are You, Christmas? @ The NRI
January 7, 2011 By 1 Comment
This Christmas past, I had a Christmas post at The NRI, which I completely forgot to blog about! Christmas is a busy time of year for us – three celebrations in three days – and things unrelated to shopping, cooking, and Joe’s birthday often slip my mind. But, better late than never…
For my family, Christmas is a season in the true sense of the word: in mid-November, my mother enters Merry Magic Xmas Mode, liberating boxes of ornaments, lights, and statuary from a Christmas storage locker a dozen suburbs away, buying more ornaments, and stocking up on all the small necessities of hosting friends and family. Come December, my dad sets up a Christmas village and train set, and puts up the (artificial) tree. When I lived at home, we’d spend hours detangling lights, stringing tinsel, hanging glass balls, and oohing and aahhing over baubles we’d grown up with…
Mumbai University Censors Rohinton Mistry @ The NRI
January 5, 2011 By 1 Comment
Late last year, I saw Salman Rushdie promoting his new book, Luka and the God of Fire, at, irony of ironies, a church in Cambridge (the same church in Harvard Square once hosted Richard Dawkins). A lady in the audience asked him about the Rohinton Mistry/Mumbai university debacle, which, at that point, I hadn’t heard of. It’s quite a story, depressing and hopeful in turns, complete with politics and charismatic leaders. Here’s the blurb for the newsy piece I wrote for The NRI last month.
In October of this year, Rohinton Mistry’s prize-winning debut novel, Such a Long Journey, was pulled from Mumbai University’s syllabus. Following Gustad Noble, a bank clerk and Parsi family man drawn into the intrigue and corruption of the Indira Gandhi years, the novel was added to the English syllabus four years ago.
The novel, writes The Guardian’s Nina Martyris, is evocative of “a Bombay of mutton samosas, prostitutes and convent schools, spies who use lines from Othello to pass on messages and public walls which need god-photos to keep them clean.” It’s a dark, grimy portrait of 70s Bombay, one which takes on Indira Gandhi, the then US and Pakistani governments, and conservative political party Shiv Sena. And therein lies the rub…
Wearing Indian Clothes In Public | Western | USA
December 23, 2010 By 2 Comments
Even now, Indian clothes are pretty, but intimidating. Perhaps it’s that my immediate family only wears them to weddings. Perhaps I’m just self-conscious. I’m not sure–but I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, and have written a little about it for The NRI. Here’s the blurb:
I have a secret: It’s black, gold-beaded, and hanging in my wardrobe. A small blouse and skirt set I picked up in an Indian mall in Australia, it’s a smart-casual Indian outfit, neat enough to wear to an interview but not a wedding, yet still dressed down enough for a trip to the grocery store.
Until I fell in love with this particular outfit, my Indian wardrobe consisted of wedding clothes: shalwar kameez, sari, and other skirt and blouse sets I’d either worn to a wedding, or as part of a wedding. These clothes, gorgeous as they are, are studded with enough bling to keep even the most inordinate rap artists and entourages happy. And I’ve been happy with that; the more formal the clothes, the less I can wear them in public.
read more over @ The NRI
Knowing Me, Knowing You @ The NRI
December 22, 2010 By Leave a Comment
I have a short piece about how to be Indian over @ The NRI.
Writing about being Indian is hard. It’s hard because it’s something we take for granted–being Indian is not an existential exercise. There’s no check list or recipe for how to be Indian, just as there’s no recipe for how to be a woman, or a mom, or a wife. And yet there are so many ways to be Indian–clothing, cooking, language, literature–that it’s easier to feel less Indian than it is to order pakoras from the takeaway down the street.
Perhaps it’s silly, but I try to do one Indian thing with Mir per day. It’s our special thing, mommy time that no one–except perhaps my brother, Ben–can share, because Mir, Ben, and I are the only mixed kids in our family. In fact, until I moved to the US, Ben and I were the only mixed race kids I knew…
read more @ The NRI…
The Masque of VS Naipaul @ The NRI
November 24, 2010 By 5 Comments
I have waited nine years to see VS Naipaul. The last time he was in town, he was fresh from his Nobel win, and I was still star-struck from my introduction to his work in a postcolonial lit class. I bought tickets the day they went on sale. Unfortunately for me, Joe took ill (or so he claimed!) about half an hour before the talk, and I didn’t make it. Lucky for me, Naipaul is a prolific author much sought after on tour, so I did get to see him recently. My latest NRI piece reflects on the talk, and the lack of Indians in the audience. Here’s the intro:
V.S. Naipaul is a small man, rounded in the middle and eloquently spoken. His accent is educated and British, his movements sparing, as if all his energy has been spent on interpreting the world, then presenting it in text. Naipaul, at 78, is an archetypal, intellectual NRI: born in Trinidad, he’s a postcolonial novelist, often writing on some level about the sense of belonging, or lack thereof, felt by NRIs; in 2007, he called on his fellow Trinidadians to let go of Indian and African, and instead embrace Trinidad. He’s been criticized for his pro-Western views, his stance on the “Muslim invasion”, and his arguably neo-apologist comments.
P.S. I once stopped Joe from seeing William Gibson. It’s an old argument we fall into pretty easily, and runs much like this:
Joe: You stopped me from seeing William Gibson!
Me: There was a snow storm!
Joe: It was still on! You said they’d cancel, and they didn’t!
Me: We didn’t have a car, there were no buses, and you’d have literally had to walk up a hill knee deep in snow!
Obama’s Change, India’s Coming Of Age @ The NRI
November 19, 2010 By 1 Comment
Another new piece up @ The NRI – an overview of President Obama and his support for India’s bid for a permanent spot on the UN Security Council. Writing about politics, outside of my usual umbrella, is a fun change, particularly since I’m a BBC and WSJ junkie. It’s nice to work outside my comfort zone every now and then; books are still my first love, though!
Do you try and write outside your comfort zone often? Why? Why not?
Here’s the Obama blurb; read more, as usual, @ The NRI. (Also, props to Barnaby Hazard Morris, a fellow NRI writer, for the excellent title.)
2010 is a year of change–according to the Obama camp, anyway. Still riding on his “Yes We Can!” platform, US president Barack Obama is on the move, touring India, Indonesia, Japan, and South Korea in a can-do effort to build better relationships with Asia’s emerging powers.
Although the trip in general is important, Obama’s address to Indian parliament–following a 2006 speech by President George W. Bush–was not groundbreaking. According to the Wall Street Journal, the two presidents’ speeches were quite similar, from the “oldest democracy in the world” spiel to the not-so-subtle references to Indian icon Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi. Obama’s address, however, stands out for its clear acknowledgement of India as an emerging power the US needs to form better ties with, as he backed India’s bid to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
“The just and sustainable international order that America seeks includes a United Nations that is efficient, effective, credible and legitimate,” Obama told the Indian parliament. “That is why I can say today, in the years ahead, I look forward to a reformed UN Security Council that includes India as a permanent member…[read more]
Conquering Bollywood – An Interview With Amanda Sodhi @ The NRI
November 18, 2010 By 1 Comment
Long time, no updates! It’s been busy in Cambridge, with a sick kidlet, a sick me, and scads of work. I have a few pieces I’m really excited about coming up soon, though.
In the meantime, here’s an interview @ The NRI with Amanda Sodhi, a fabulous woman conquering mountains everyday. Seriously, Amanda makes me look really, really lazy, even on my 3+ article days. Here’s the blurb; head over to The NRI to read more.
Amanda Sodhi is something of a whirlwind–when she’s not penning lyrics for some pretty impressive Bollywood names, writing and shooting a film, she’s busy working the marketing department at Camilla David Textiles. She’s also impressively in tune with the Indian experience in the US, writing for several Indian publications, including a Planet Bollywood and Saathee magazine. Earlier this month, I sat down to chat with Amanda about her film, “Life! Camera Action,” being Indian in everyday life, and more…
India, Meet Galli Galli Sim Sim – Part 2
October 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment
In part 1 of my interview with Shari Rosenfeld, International Vice President of Sesame Workshop, we chatted at the beginning of Galli Galli Sim Sim, India’s local version of Sesame Street. Here’s what Shari has to say about how parents feel about GGSS:
I think overall the reception has been very very strong. It’s a complicated question because it’s a mixed demographic and – for example, the initial Pogo cartoon audience was largely the upper socioeconomic class, really the upper upper socioeconomic class. Over time as cable penetration started to expand we’ve gotten a very different audience base. And I should say we also have the audience base for Doordarshan as well.
I think the whole idea of television to teach is a fairly new concept. There hasn’t been a rich legacy around that. Public television like Doordarshan, that’s not where its roots are. And certainly commercial television, with the exception of a few shows here and there, have not really used television as a way to engage as well as educate…so it’s been a while to bring the Sesame brand ethos to India, but I think that the reception has been really really strong. Galli Galli Sim Sim, it’s really become very much of a household word…and in fact on many occasions when I’ve been in India, I’d see a bunch of kids and I’d tell them somehow, I’d say Galli Galli Sim Sim, they would break into the theme song, so it’s clear that kids are watching it.
Read more about Galli Galli Sim Sim & its appeal over at The NRI…