And this was no tween pining from behind a roadside barrier. The ‘she’ in question paid upwards of $100 for a ticket to the premiere of Mani Ratnam’s Guru, held at the gorgeous Elgin Theatre last night. As in, she was inside. And still screaming. Frenzy does not even begin to describe the spectacle that is a Bollywood West premiere. Short video of the madness here. Had TMBWITW not discovered my (sizzling) relationship with Abhishek (call me!) perhaps I too would have been a part of this much-hyped affair. Kaash…

Last September, when Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival, the story goes that far more people turned up at its screening than at the Babel screening which happened on the same day. Brad Pitt in the flesh could not conjure crowds like the Bachchans and SRK. The year before, Lisa Ray and John Abraham appeared on an Eye Weekly cover after Water’s debut. Eye is a highly popular Toronto magazine that provides excellent insight into arts and culture happenings. Its covers are usually dedicated to indie bands and other hippy shit. To think that John Abraham, he of little faith in barbershops, is now actually a part of that hippy shit…It makes me proud.

If there’s one thing Toronto does well it is luring film dollars to town. Hence the frothy excitement generated by Guru’s premiere among suits on both sides. Numerous Bollywood productions have used Hogtown as their backdrop and City Hall is finally realizing that there’s more to film than production. With South Asians poised to become the largest minority group in Canada within ten years, the domestic market for such films is – to put it lightly – huge. Ever so in love with all things multiculti, our Mayor Miller personally extended an invitation to Bachchan and Rai to grace the premiere with their fairy dust. Meanwhile, Guru has taken on the title of Bollywood’s first ever mainstream international release. I have a slight bone to pick here. This mainstream release business sounds grand but the film is only opening in two cinemas in the Toronto area. On top of this, Toronto’s only dedicated Hindi cinemas are not releasing it this weekend which I’m sure is going to leave a bruise. Is it a similar issue in your town? Could this be the beginning of the end for the smaller players? AMC and Cineplex better start stocking samosas and chai if this is the case.

What I really want to point your most generous eyes to is the hair on Abhishek Bachchan’s perfect head:

It is as if he just strolled out of apdu Joshi Saloon where my mum personally poured a half bottle of Parachute oil into his mop and tel maalished the smile off his face. Because it is only in my darkest, post-oiling, moments that I have ever felt the need to utilize such an instrument of torture. A wire hairband. No matter, my prince, I know you’re only trying to make yourself greasy so that this MBWITW person can leave you be. I can deal with that

I thought I had eyeballed the future when the first Smart car crossed my eyes, speeding down Sheikh Zayed road a few years ago. In a city like Dubai where petrol is cheaper than pop yet parking mostly comes in either the illegal or the parallel form a Smart car looked like it just might live up to its moniker. I was naive. It is today that I am really peering into that which is in store and yes it is also a small car. I like small cars but I like electric cars better.

Via Popgadget, a Bangalore-based company has been making the coolest little electric car known as the Reva since 2001. According to the site the Reva goes 85 KM on one charge through a 15 Amp socket. It boasts dent-proof ABS body panels, a dual-breaking system, climate control seats, and over 2000 colours to choose from while “elevated seats and a wide door provide excellent ingress/egress especially for ladies in saree and senior citizens”. Much better than having to sit sideways on a scooty.

Last year the Reva Electric Car Company produced a super prototype of the next generation, an electric roadster called the Reva NXG. This bad boy comes equipped with a modem, GPS navigation, MP3 player, and a 125 mile range per charge. Plus it just looks cool.

The Reva has sold 900 units in India and is also on the roads in Malta and the U.K. The base price in India is Rs. 250, 000. Having never so much as looked at a car’s price tag there I don’t know how expensive this is in comparison to other cars on the road. Please feel free to enlighten. Have any Mutineers spotted or driven these vroom-vrooms in their town?

Two news items relating to the twin weapons of prevention and cure require mention here while at least two G-8 governments require a duo of tight slaps.

First up, courtesy of a great post on Pass the Roti (Thanks, Ennis!) we have details of a Bangladeshi group ‘Durjoy Nari Shangha’ having to close down sex-worker aid and education centers in Dhaka in order to keep in accord with US funding conditions:

The sex workers collective — its name translates roughly as “organization of women who are hard to repress” — had 20 drop-in centers before December, offering sex and literacy education as well as moral support, toilets and a place to wash and rest for up to 5,000 women. It closed them after signing what aid groups call the “prostitution loyalty oath” that requires groups receiving USAID funding to have a policy opposing prostitution and sex trafficking. The group now has just four centers, geared to children and children’s rights. Bagum said that before the centers closed, the group sold 73,000 condoms a month. That has fallen to 30,000, even though health experts agree that condoms are the best way of stopping the spread of AIDS.[Link]

A PEPFAR spokesperson had this to say:

“Our office has not received information that drop-in centers have closed, or that there has been any interruption in services that target sex workers as a result of our anti-prostitution policy,” she said. “Critics who continue to spread misinformation about (the plan’s) policies are causing fear and confusion.”

USAID HIV/AIDS funding is overseen by the directives outlined in the “United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Act of 2003″. The act clearly states that:

“No funds made available to carry out this Act, or any amendment made by this Act, may be used to provide assistance to any group or organization that does not have a policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking.”  [Link]

Here’s the kicker:

In May 2006, two American judges ruled in two separate cases that this funding restriction violated the First Amendment of the U.S. constitution - the right to free speech – and so could not be applied to the U.S.-based organisations that brought the cases. This probably means that all U.S.-based organisations will be exempted from the clause. However, all overseas groups wishing to receive U.S. Government funding, whether directly or indirectly, must still comply. Numerous non-governmental organisations and public health experts believe that the clause is harmful and should be removed.

I have a generally sunny disposition but I hope the sick geezers who fought to include this clause and its cousins “preach abstinence and being faithful for a third of the total prevention budget” and “no funds for syringe exchange programs anywhere” rot in Mordor.

On the other hand, here in Cuh-nay-da we have a stubborn Prime Minister who chose not to attend the conference at all, even though it took place less than a four hour drive from his official residence.  This has been bugging me for days, how does a Prime Minister who has less than stellar popular support in foreign and environmental policy refuse to recognize an international AIDS conference in the one city that didn’t vote a single member of his party into parliament?  Stubborn ass or scared of the past?  Though tempted to go former I will take the latter. PM Harper would have had to answer some uncomfortable questions about a pledge made by the Canadian government to provide cheap generic drugs for underdeveloped nations and how a single pill has yet to leave the country.

The Access to Medicines Regime  was to export generically produced drugs at a lower cost to countries in need.  However, manufacture was limited to Canadian generic drug companies.  More than two years later Canadian-made generic drugs are having a hard time getting through the red tape.  Once on the other side, they find themselves lagging in price value to Indian-made drugs.  This coupled with anxieties about trade rules among eligible nations who refuse to identify themselves for compulsory licensing is turning a decent deed into a complete dud.  Time to wake up and come to work, Mr. Harper.

An ending quote then, from South African activist Mark Heywood:

“We have the means, so what stops us from acting?” he said. “And what should be done about those in power who refuse to act? These are the most pertinent questions facing the next stage of the AIDS epidemic.”  [Link]

Take a long look at the ANTM Cycle 7 contestants and tell me you haven’t been this excited since Cycle 3:

Name: Anchal, Occupation: Sales Clerk, Age: 19, Hometown: Homestead, Fla. [Link]

I just wanted to get that off my chest. Blood pressure normalizing.

Twenty two year old British Columbia native Dev Aujla’s organization Dream Now appears to have some answers. Dream Now is a great initiative that helps youth organize their efforts in creating and running grass roots non-profit projects. They provide management tools and, more importantly, mentorship to participants around the globe. It all starts with an idea and rest is made easier with step-by-step guide from brain storming to project completion.

Dev’s younger brother, Aaron Aujla has also begun spreading the good word through his clothing label Auj. Every cashmere tee has an access code which, when entered, will result in a phone call from a Dream Now mentor. Cashmere tees? Yes. Preppy? Most def. Making saving the world sexy? Hopefully. Current customers include students who patented a free water purification system in Uganda, a “future dentist” who is starting an organization to bring relief to children, and Simon Jackson.

The two brothers, who have relocated shop to the centre of the universe a.k.a. Queen St. West, Toronto, have been featured in CBC’s new docu-series ‘Make Some Noise‘. The series chronicles the efforts made by young people to create change in the world around them. Watch their segment. Watch it! Makes my cynical bones itch with enthusiasm.

Big ups to the Aujlas for their energy and dedication to making and helping make do-good dreams come true.

This year’s headlining act is Trickbaby (of Bluffmaster fame) as part of the Brit InvASIAN showcase, which is presented yearly courtesy of the British Council. And if you Taraana Mutineers were wishing you could have gone to see some Rajasthani folk music tonight then hold up because Kerap is going to be on stage this Friday evening. I love me some Marwari music. Strangely enough they are also “from France!” The “Chillin’ in Your Brown Skin” seminars are back facilitating dicussion on different social issues. A spoken word fest (with Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Sheniz Janmohamed and Muslim Rizvi) and book readings galore. There’s even a couple Laughter Yoga Club sessions on Saturday and Sunday afternoon. Need I say any more? Check the listings for your fix.

Like I said, M! M! M! has gone big this year with an impressive corporate sponsor (Rogers) and a spangly new venue, much needed after they hit the 100, 000 people mark last year. Admission price is still a big juicy zero, thanggod. So go forth and machaao-fy some dhoom dhaam, it’s a brown town this weekend (well, actually, every weekend, but this weekend especially so

Toronto Mutineers, hitch up your lungis and roll those kurta sleeves because the Indian Electronica festival is coming to your town. Festival mastermind Qasim Virjee, he of Dishoom fame, has brought together some choice performers like LAL, Omnesia ensemble, dancer Monkia Monga, and of course himself, as his badass alter-ego, Abdul Smooth.

Hot deets, get your hot deets right here:

When? Thursday, July 20th
Where? El Mocambo (464 Spadina, just South of College)
How? Tickets are $10 online, $15 at the door
No really, when? Keynote on ‘Developments in South Asian music since the Asian Underground’ at 8 pm, first act is up at 9 pm
What should I bring? A camera if you’ve got one because that SM flickr group is looking kinda skimpy.
Will Neha be there even though she has a deadly meeting at 9 on Friday? Hell yes!

+++

For those on the other side of the pond, take in the festival’s August installment in London town. Featuring the likes of Pathaan, Bobby Friction, DhakFu, Eagle-i, Ges-e, Nerm/the Shiva Soundsystem, Fusing Naked Beats, Yam Boy, and Visionary Underground.

Mubin Shaikh is the 30-year-old son of Indian immgrants who spent six years in the Royal Canadian Army Cadets and embraced Islam 10 years ago, after taking in trips to South Asia and the Middle East. He is a fierce supporter of Sharia law in Ontario and runs Canada’s only Sharia law arbitration centre. He is about as orthodox as Ontario Muslims come. Mubin Shaikh is also a mole.Shaikh has been on the CSIS payroll for two years now but it was only last October that he began his new assignment, infiltrating the “Toronto 17″. Not only did he have to contend with pressure from CSIS but he had to deal with talk within his own community too. His job is far from over as he will be speaking at the criminal trial as a star witness. If I were him I would probably be hiding in a closet somewhere, especially since everyone around him knew his game when he was the only member of the terror crew to escape arrest. Props are due, he’s even refusing to go into the Witness Protection Program. Shaikh says he did it for Canada…:

“I wanted to prevent lthe loss of life,” he said. “I don’t want Canadians to think that these (suspects) are what Muslims are. I don’t believe in violence here. I wanted to help and I’m as homegrown as it gets.” [Link]

…and for Muslims in Canada:

If the plot to set off explosives in Toronto and Ottawa were allowed to happen, Shaikh said, Muslims would have suffered more than anyone else, other than those killed in the attacks. “That’s what people have to understand because now, a guy like me, who’s an agent of the state, responsible for bringing these guys down, I’m still called a terrorist in the street,” he said. [Link]

But the loudest reps for Toronto’s Muslim community are doubting his motives. According to Tarek Fatah of the Muslim Canadian Congress:

“This is like the pot calling the kettle black because Mr. Mubin Shaikh has been the exponent of Islamic extremism in this city.
“He has been the number one proponent of the imposition of sharia law in Canada, has been extremely hostile to all moderate Muslims, which calls into question whether he’s acting out of sincerity or is he trying to fish himself out of his own troubles.”

While controversial Iman Aly Hindy’s imagination is just going all out:

“I don’t think his role was just to inform what was happening, he was making things happen,” Hindy said. “There’s a big difference between when you see something wrong and you inform the authorities and when you start actually inciting things to happen.”

Such is to be expected from Hindy but Tarek Fatah has been the voice of moderate Islam though this entire ordeal, I expected a more positive note from him. I admit such cynicism isn’t that difficult to warrant when taking into consideration Shaikh’s prior dealings with the wrong side of the law:

Mr. Shaikh was also once accused of assaulting his aunt and was charged criminally, Mr. Shaikh told The Globe. Those charges were dropped, Mr. Shaikh said, adding that his credibility will remain intact with people who truly know him.

And there’s the case with Shaikh senior too:

Last year, his father was charged with sexual assault after a woman said she had been fondled by an Islamic chaplain who was supposed to be counselling her through a divorce.

Ugh.

As long as Hindy’s fantasies don’t turn into reality by some freaky as-yet unrevealed CSIS/RCMP factiods then Shaikh has done excellent work. Regardless of whether he did it for money or a clean slate, somebody had to step up to the plate to do the dirty deed. One dude who has nothing but love for this mole is Liberal MP for York-South Weston, Alan Tonks. Shaikh is that riding’s Multiculturalism Chair, here’s his intro (I wonder if Tonks wrote it himself?):

Traveller, philosopher, theologian, Mubin Shaikh is not your ordinary Torontonian. At first look, one might think they’ve encountered an extremist but on second take, you realize you’ve been had! [Link]

Imagine that!

Anyway, once sheÂ’s good and stoned ready we break out the Myst and get to work. Rajni likes to control the mouse while I scribble furiously in our Myst journals and thumb walkthroughs for hints. This is a terrible arrangement. I swear, those cigars turn Rajni into a space-monkey. Not spaced out like her celebrity crush Baker (heee!) but spacey as in staring at every little leaf and rock for minutes on end. While all I want to do is solve the puzzles. In this life sometime.

Last night we fought about this arrangement. Well, I fought; she was just like, “Got any bananas, pathetic human?” So, I’ve given up Myst and started a new hobby. No, pyaare people, not smoking cigars. I’ve started making dreadlocks out of Rajni’s fur while she zones. She looks a hot mess now but whatever, you doob you lose. Read that, Rajni? The soundtrack I use to keep our dopey dwarf in check while I tease and tangle is Kush Arora’s wicked new album, ‘Bhang Ragga: Dancehall, Bhangra, in Future Dub’.

Last month my one and only XLR8R mag had the following to say about this boy from the Bay:

Oakland, CA-raised Kush Aurora embraces his New Delhi heritage without denying his high school music obsession: death metal. Like Kid 606 or The Bug, Aurora-also an avowed digital-dub and industrial music fan-doesn’t limit his production to a polite Desi dance sound. Instead, he links up with Jamaican emcees N4SA and Mr. Frank, and percussionists Jagtar Singh and Sukhadia, and adds his own barrage of war zone beats. “Cold World” blends Crip-walking tablas with moody synths, while “Sad Corruption” (with Amit Kumar Das on santoor) is potent South Asian dubstep. With an aural anarchist behind the mixing board, Bhang Ragga does for Punjabi beats what Adrian Sherwood did for dub. [Link]

Dub and ragga are not new to the desi scene but my experience with these colliding fields is limited to Bally Sagoo, those wicked Massive Attack + Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan remixes, some Stereo Nation stuff and of course, Apache Indian. According to Wikipedia:

Bhangragga is a slang term for the style of music incorporating elements of Bhangra and dancehall reggae (or Ragga, short for the word Raggamuffin). The sound is very percussion-heavy – a distinct holdover from Bhangra – with a propulsive beat clearly designed for dancing. The Dancehall influence can be felt through the use of pre-programmed music, similar to Dancehall “riddims”. Lyrically, the style features a combination of Sub-Continental-accented (usually Indian) vocals delivered in the clipped style associated with Dancehall – and sometimes including the Patois of the latter style. This style is almost exclusively a British phenomenon, as the two cultures involved in its genesis mix reasonably freely there. [Link]

Arora has produced two albums to date, which somewhat stray from the above definition in that they are not “clearly designed for dancing”. The tone is heavier on experimental dub sounds using bhangra percussion. Echos and reverbs galore. And just about perfect for hanging around dreading a damn monkeyÂ’s fur…Or whatever it is that you crazy kids are doing to have fun these days. You can listen to many of the tracks from both albums on his site. Personally, I like the complete instrumental version of Bhang Ragga best (which took me a lot of sweat and illegal activity to find) but that’s just me.

I am dead curious to hear what he sounds like live but no Northern dates set as yet. Catch him at Club Azul in San Fran on July 22nd or at Club Boca on August 17th (w/ Kid Kameleon) then come tell us how it was.

All you partners in grime out there: Do you know any bhangraggamuffins in your hood? I’d sure like to get some more tunage of this type. Got me a lot more dreadlocks to twist and all.

India plans to provide free anti-retroviral drugs to combat HIV — the virus that causes AIDS — to around 100,000 people by early next year, a top health official said, as this nation struggles with the largest number of AIDS infections in the world. [Link]

Armed with a budget of about $200 million U.S., availiability of free ARV drugs is going to expand from 52 clinics supplying 35, 000 people to a whole 100 clinics:

“By August, we will be able to reach anti-retroviral therapy drugs to around 85,000 people infected with the virus,” Rao told journalists. “But by early 2007, we will have drugs made available to 100,000 people with HIV.”

According to Sujatha Rao (Director General, National AIDS Control Organization), treatment is going to supplement a newly strengthened AIDS awareness campaign:

Among the new initiatives is a program to reach out to pregnant mothers so that mother-to-child transmission of AIDS can be controlled. So far, only 4,500 pregnant mothers had been given doses of nevrapine — a drug that prevents the transmission of the virus from an HIV-infected mother to a newborn infant.

“We are also creating awareness among people in schools, colleges and through the media on what causes HIV. Once people know that AIDS is treatable, although not curable, it will reduce the stigma and discrimination associated with the disease,” Rao said.

Now if only the amount of effort being spent on disputing UNAIDS’ figures could go towards more positive action then I would yelp a little more. I mean really, 5.5 million vs. 5.7 million is still over five too many millions.

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