Date: THURSDAY, September 23rd, 2010

Time: 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm

Place: Indiä’s Restaurant

We’ll be meeting at Indiä’s Restaurant because it satisfies some minimum requirements: decent food, easy access from I-25, plenty of parking, and a respectfully stocked bar.

I was half hoping that one person would join us and then go next door for a 2.5-hour Hindi/Telegu/Tamil cinematic extravaganza– so we could crown that person the brownest person in the room, but it doesn’t look as if anything is playing that night. We’ll still take nominations though. I’m rooting for the person who figures out why our restaurant has an umlaut, which means that it should be pronounced “Indi-yehs.” (But maybe it’s more like Häagen Dasz).

When I first moved to Colorado, I thought it was the whitest place I had ever been. Then I got stuck in the airport at Salt Lake City. Now that I have lived here a while, I know there are many of you around. I’ve met a fair number of South Asian American 2nd-gens like me in Colorado, but I’ve also met people from every single South Asian country (including the Maldives) except Bhutan– though I know you’re around too.

Come on out, and say hi! If you can join us, let us know by leaving a comment, and I can book a table for all of us before we arrive.

(Nilanjana’s Rule #23 of Indian Film Plots: As if you have never seen any other Indian films that feature an Air Force Pilot as a [major](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silsila_(film) character, it rarely bodes well.)

“Roop Tera Mastana” is the steamiest song sequence I know, and I can only imagine how audiences reacted to it in 1969. The torrent of passion in Anand Bakshi’s lyrics only heightens the drama of the downpour outside, and Kishore Kumar’s hushed, enticing vocals were so popular that this song may have singlehandedly killed his acting career. Although Aradhana‘s soundtrack is officially credited to Sachin Dev Burman, the bass guitar, surging accordion, and sultry saxophone suggest that his son R.D. Burman may have had a stronger hand in this song.

Once you hear the saxophone solo that starts at 00:39, you don’t need to watch the next scene to know exactly how this drama will unfold.

Three days ago, the man behind that saxophone, Manohari Singh, passed away at the age of 79. His distinctive sound was one of the many crucial elements that defined R.D. Burman’s modern style in the 1960s and 1970s. One doesn’t have to look much further than “The Greatest Story Ever Told.” Watch out for the sax solo at 1:33 here, while you watch Helen do what only Helen can do…

Manohari Singh began his career in Kolkata (then Calcutta) as a clarinetist, and also occasionally played the mandolin and flute in jazz bands in nightclubs as well as the Calcutta Symphony Orchestra.

When he arrived in Bombay, in the late 1950s, the Hindi film world was uniquely prepared for him. “The most famous sax player was Ram Singh, and after he died, people simply stopped using the alto sax,” Lord says. “For six or seven years, there was a gap, because nobody was good enough. After that, Manohari filled the gap.” But Singh also caught Bollywood on a cusp. “Before him, the trumpet and saxophone would be used in a very muted manner–feeble but still beautiful,” says Manohar Iyer, who runs a music troupe in Mumbai called Keep Alive, and who first met Singh in the early 1990s. “Then the trend began to change. There were more solos. This is when Manohari-ji came in” (Livemint).

Some (but not all!) of us are quick to name our favorite film song composers and playback singers, but few if any of us stop to remember the incredible individual musicians like Manohari Singh who make great film songs what they are. Last year I came to understand much more about these musicians and their role in the film music industry overall after reading Gregory Booth’s recent book Behind the Curtain: Making Music in Mumbai’s film studios. Booth starts by revealing who the real Anthony Gonsalves was, and no, it wasn’t Amitabh Bachchan popping out of a giant Easter Egg. Booth’s book explores the pre-digital era of Indian film music from the late 1940s through the early 1990s, and it’s a must-read if you’re even vaguely interested in Indian film music.

Even if you’re not an old-school film song fan, you may have heard Manohari Singh’s sax in more recent films like Chalte Chalte and Veer-Zaara. Shortly before he died, Singh appeared with Asha Bhosle on an Indian Idol 5 show devoted to R.D. Burman. He was still playing as strong as ever.

Rest in peace, Maestro.

And that’s where Renu Kansal comes to the rescue.

Old-timers may recognize her from her previous avatar, but over the last three years, Renu has enrolled over 630 students at her studio, Bollywood West, and now serves as the semi-official Bollywood ambassador of Colorado.Last February, Renu’s studio attracted national media attention, where she confessed (for shame) that she wasn’t a sure that a Bollywood dance studio would thrive out here in this forsaken land:

Students swing their hips, raise one hand to their mouths as if calling out to a lover, and then lift one leg and hop forward in a line. After the number, instructor Renu Kansal reminds the dancers to wave their arms side to side smoothly, so they don’t look “too drill-team-ish.” As if they were in a Bollywood movie, the dancers are trying to tell a story of romance. “I taught this in New York, and when we moved out here and I started Bollywood dancing classes, I was skeptical,” Kansal said in an interview. “I was like, oh gosh, I don’t know if this’ll work here. But I had to double my class offerings in under a month. It was a huge surprise to me.” [link]

As you might guess, her classes are not quite like those offered by the auntie who teaches the kids for the Diwali function. It’s a professional operation, and a serious dance studio. I’ve taken notice of the fact that she’s taken Denver by storm by opening her studio to everybody – across dance experiences, gender, age, and race. If you’ve seen these folks move once, you’re hooked by how much fun they’re having—and did we mention the fact that they’re good?

Because they’re good, Bollywood West has been popping up all over the news in the post-Slumdog era– in places you’d expect, but even more spectacularly—in places you wouldn’t. On the no-brainer side, Bollywood West has performed at some of the most high profile events in Denver—like the November 2008 Starz Denver Film Festival opening of that film that won some awards. 

But last May, Bollywood “went to bat.” Billed as “a great chance for the Bollywood-curious to get their feet wet — and for Bollywood fans to check out the great American pastime, “ you may still be wondering why Renu’s company would be asked to perform for a Colorado Rockies game (2007 World Series, um, hopefuls,) And here it is:

“They wanted something upbeat, high-energy, youthful and vibrant. We are, apparently, all of those things… We play cricket in India, so the transition to baseball takes a little explaining, usually,” Kansal says. “People want to know where the wickets went and why you have to run around four bases instead of back and forth between two — and why the games are so short. Cricket games go on for days.  “You never know what could happen,” she goes on. “We could redefine the point of confluence between Bollywood and baseball. Hopefully we can turn some sports fans into Bollywood fans as well.” [link]

It’s all about confluence, you see. Last month, Renu and her company were asked to present at what’s probably one of the most popular and talked about cultural event series around here: Mixed Taste, at MCA Denver. The idea is to take two speakers who have nothing to do with one another, throw them in a space where they present one after the other without referring to each other, and then let all hell break loose in the discussion. I was there. So… we had Bollywood West vs. Urban Parkour. (And no, I’m not going even try to explain what Urban Parkour is. Just watch the link, ok?) The crowd is the urban contemporary museum meets artsy hipster crowd—- not so brown, in other words. (Proof: I was complimented on my dancing at the reception and almost choked on my drink.)

Back to topic. After watching Urban Parkour (APEX movement/CO Parkour) literally bounce off walls and elicit “oohs” and “aaahs,” I was a little worried as to how Bollywood dance vs. Urban Parkour would play out. Suspense. Then Renu dazzled us through a genealogy and classification of Bollywood-style dancing—from past to present in under 45 minutes, with ample demonstrations by her company, including a performance of the recent Aaja Nachle number, “Show Me Your Jalwa.” As for the discussion, here’s how it went down:

The first question?

“What’s a jalwa?”

And shortly thereafter,

“I ask that each group show me its jalwa.”

And so they did, after which many other questions followed.  The Bollywood folks commented on Parkour, the Parkour on Bollywood. And it ended with the Parkour folks (called “Traceurs”) bouncing off more things while Bollywood West jammed to “Jai Ho.” Surreal, but definitely one of the most fun and interesting events I’ve been to for a long time.

Given that we’re apparently the only two people in Colorado who read Sepia Mutiny (Mountain mutineers, hello???) I wanted to ask her some questions that have been keeping me up at night, and she obliged to answering them.

1.    Did Madhuri Dixit pass on her dancing jalwa to you in a mystical ceremony, or did you actually convince your parents that it was ok to study Bollywood dancing?  

Sadly, neither. My dad, like most desi dads of the time, was not at all supportive to send me to college as a (gasp! Cue shame!) dance major. I managed to capitalize on the Pavlovian Dad-word “engineer” and convinced my parents that a degree in Audio Engineering and Sound Reinforcement/Acoustical Engineering was a good idea. I think they didn’t know what it actually was, luckily for me. (i.e., listen to music all the time and hang around all your friends in the band, yet while still getting paid). They heard the word engineer and rejoiced at my potential stability and maintenance of the desi career-trinity (daktur-enjneer-compootersciences)

2.    Your studio is thriving. From what I’ve read, it sounds as if you hadn’t predicted something like Bollywood West would take off here. What about the Denver/ Colorado area has made it so supportive of what you’re doing?

Not that I didn’t want it to succeed, I just had to be realistic, as does anyone starting up a business. I planned for it to be really lean for a couple of years… That said, I think that even though Colorado is considered flyover/RedState turf, Denver and Boulder are small cultural bright spots on the way to either coast. We don’t get enough credit. People out here are very culturally oriented, very physically active, and there’s a prevailing “why not?” attitude when presented with something new. My student base is made up of a lot “why not’s” that have been straight hypnotized by the jhatka-matkas and the haripas, and they keep coming back, week after week, year after year! Out here it’s really such a diverse group that comes to our classes, it makes it hard to pin down demographics and target-audience data. I guess the only recurring theme is that our people like to shake it…

3.    This is a hard one, but what would you say to those cynical party-poopers who look at the American enthusiasm for Bollywood dancing as Orientalist? (To those who decry Bollywood dancing as vulgar and superficial, I say you remind me of my elderly relatives. The crotchety ones.)

I’d say it just comes back around—American movies of the 30s and 40s were musical style, just like Bollywood. It just happened that American film trended away from this style and Indian cinema found a way to make it work in almost any situation. With Moulin Rouge, High School Musical, the movie of Rent, and a bunch of other near-to-recent films, it’s ridiculous to say that India has a lockdown on the concept of songs/dances in movies. It’s just that mainstream American film abandoned the model until only recently. The intrigue and popularity of Bollywood movies now serves as a catalyst to make it all more mainstream digestible here in the US again and for the American film industry to re-popularize soundtrack oriented films and incorporate dance again. Western grandparents see it as coming back around to the style they loved, this is nothing new. And I don’t think healthy interest and enthusiasm for any culture is a bad thing—it’s the opposite action that perpetuates all things bad and the worst behaviors in society. I remember one time, with Bollywood Axion, we were shooting for a Japanese documentary and they had followed us along to some performance at the South Street Seaport Diwali Mela. At the end of the shooting day, after performances, the director wanted us to say something cheesy and exuberant on-camera like “Bollywood for everyone!” So we shout, “Bollywood for everyone!!” and some crotchety old aunties, shuffling by, snapped at us “No! Bollywood is just for Indian!!” and scowled like salty hags that they were. Unless they personally were descendents of DadaSahib Phalke, I say nobody has any ownership over Bollywood, as an industry or a culture.

4.    What do you see as the next big trends in Bollywood dancing? Aerial? Parkour? Mosh pits?

Parkour definitely is a new trend, seen in both Tashan and ham-fistedly in Dilli-6. Akshay being part-ninja, executed his runs pretty well, though I’m sure there are local Bombay traceurs who would put him to shame. (Including our own BongBreaker, of London.) We’ve only seen one instance of Aerial—that of Isha Shervani in Luck By Chance, although I still maintain I’d performed the first bollywood aerial routine, last summer. I think the more the global stage of dance is opening up, with borderless media like online, TV programs like SYTYCD, etc—the style will continue to influence and be influenced globally. There was a big run of salsa-influenced bollywood dancing, a few years ago… it will change to Polish goat-farmer dancing, if that’s the new hot trend. I’m sure they can throw it down, the Polish goat-farmers…

5.    Lastly, are you as dumbfounded as I am that they haven’t shot a Bollywood movie in Aspen or Vail yet?

Yes!! And it would be a breeze to hire back-up dancers and a choreographer, locally, if they did—cough cough.

Afterward: Shortly after Renu answered these questions, she dropped a tantalizing tidbit but swore me to secrecy for a few days. (DesiDancer’s been plotting some new tamasha.) Stay tuned…

A few days ago, I received a press announcement for a new line of luxury bottled water: B’eau Pal. (Oo la la!) But the fine print was a little less enticing:

The unique qualities of our water come from 25 years of slow-leaching toxins at the site of the world’s largest industrial accident. To this day, Dow Chemical — who bought Union Carbide — has refused to clean up and whole new generations are being poisoned.

An explanation? Suffice it to say that The Yes Men have been at it again. In 2004, one of the Yes Men impersonated a Dow spokesperson on BBC World TV and announced that the “company was finally going to compensate the victims and clean up Bhopal.” (We blogged about it here.) Immature? Perhaps. But it was remarkably satisfying to watch Dow, with its tail between its legs, distance themselves from this false announcement, which temporarily decreased Dow’s share price by two billion dollars.

Some of you may remember that stunt. Others of you, like me, may even be old enough to remember when Bhopal unfolded in December 1984. (And I’m young enough to have associated Indira Gandhi’s assassination earlier that year with trick-or-treating.) As Bhopal prepares to mark the 25th anniversary of this disaster, a recently released report by the Sambhavna Trust shows that

local groundwater, vegetables, and breast milk are contaminated by toxic quantities of nickel, chromium, mercury, lead, and volatile organic compounds. The report describes how a majority of children in one nearby community are born with serious medical problems traceable to the contamination. [source]

I’m trying to find a copy of the report, but in the meantime, find it worth mentioning that the Sambhavna Trust, composed of scientists, doctors, writers, and social workers, is working to “evolve simple, safe, effective, ethical and participatory ways of treatment monitoring and research for the survivors of Bhopal.” Part of this approach involves re-examining what in their words has been the dominant treatment of Bhopal victims so far– “the indiscriminate prescription of steroids, antibiotics and psychotropic drugs [that] is compounding the damage caused by the gas exposure.”[[source]](As the spawn of an Indian physician who emigrated to the United States in the late 1960s and as an antihistamine junkie, I cautiously agree that Sambhavna may have a point.)

Watch below as the Yes Men collaborate in their latest stunt with Bhopal activists, including Sathyu Sarangi (pictured above) from the Sambhavna Clinic, who attempt to offer random Londoners a taste of their toxic water before attempting to deliver it to Dow headquarters in London. (Dow doesn’t seem to be at home.)

Given that some younger people (at least in this video) have no memory of this disaster, I think that this PR gimmick is effective in raising awareness about both the disaster itself, and the fact that much, much more needs to be done. But what say the mutinous hordes?

Here’s what she’s doing in her own words:

Starting May 2009, I have pledged to wear one dress for one year as an exercise in sustainable fashion. Here’s how it works: There are 7 identical dresses, one for each day of the week. Every day I will reinvent the dress with layers, accessories and all kinds of accouterments, the majority of which will be vintage, hand-made, or hand-me-down goodies. Think of it as wearing a daily uniform with enough creative license to make it look like I just crawled out of the Marquis de Sade’s boudoir.

There’s a remarkable simplicity in The Uniform Project, as well as a challenge. (Check out those chains!) It’s also a fundraiser for the Akanksha Foundation’s School Project, a Mumbai-based non-profit that funds uniforms and other educational expenses for slum children in India.

As for her inspiration, it’s the uniforms that kids in Indian public schools had to wear when she was growing up.

Despite the imposed conformity, kids always found a way to bend the rules and flaunt a little personality. Boys rolled up their sleeves, wore over-sized swatches, and hiked up their pants to show off their high-tops. Girls obsessed over bangles, bindis and bad hairdos. Peaking through the sea of uniforms were the idiosyncrasies of teen style and individual flare. I now want to put the same rules to test again, only this time I’m trading in the catholic school fervor for an eBay addiction and relocating the school walls to this wonderful place called the internet.

Girls and boys, if you’ve got some accessories or funds to spare, let her know. In the meantime, check out her 69+ outfits, and counting!

Yesterday Indian classical music lost one of its greatest, master sarod player Ali Akbar Khan. Those of you from the Bay Area will recognize his name in association with the school he founded in 1967, the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, CA, which has taught North Indian classical music to more than 10,000 students. Along with sitar player Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan was the face of North Indian classical music in the United States and influenced countless musicians around the world.

Guitarist Carlos Santana once said that a single note of Khan’s sarod "goes right to my heart," while classical violinist Yehudi Menuhin – who prompted Mr. Khan to first visit the United States in 1955 – once called the sarodist "the greatest musician in the world."

Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart, who took drum lessons at Mr. Khan’s college the first year it opened, said …, "All the people who studied there – it changed all our lives. Khan embodies the pure spirit of music; it’s not just the notes, it’s the spirit. Every time I listen to him, he takes me there."(link)

In 1971, Ali Akbar Khan appeared with Ravi Shankar and tabla player Alla Rakha at George Harrison’s 1971 concert for Bangladesh at New York’s Madison Garden.

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p>Born in Bengal and trained as a disciple in a tradition descended from the famed singer Tansen in the Mughal emperor Akbar’s court [corrected], Khan’s father was Ustad Allauddin Khan, who taught Ali Akbar Khan and Ravi Shankar. He gave his first public performance at the age of 13 in Allahabad. Recording from his early twenties, Ali Akbar Khan was titled “Ustad” or “master” by the state of Jodhpur, where he served as Court Musician to the Maharajah.

He performed, often for hours at a time; gave lessons; and composed for the court orchestra. The post vanished after the maharajah died in a plane crash in 1948, and before long the chaos surrounding independence and partition put an end to the court system, which was already in decline. (link)

Ali Akbar Khan first visited the United States in 1955 and performed an unprecedented concert at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He also made the first Western LP recording of Indian classical music, ["“Music of India: Morning and Evening Ragas,” for Angel,] and the first television performance of Indian music, on Allistair Cooke’s Omnibus, sowing the seed for the wave of popularity of Indian music in the 1960′s.(link)

He founded the Ali Akbar College of Music in Calcutta in 1956, but recognizing the great need for Indian classical music instruction in the United States, he established the school in California. Ali Akbar Khan won a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship ("genius grant") in 1991 and a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1997. Known as a master musician throughout the world, he considered his teaching at the Ali Akbar College his greatest achievement.

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p>Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, sarod, with Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri, tabla: Raag Bhairavi Bhatiyaar, Aalap and gat

For those of you who are still looking for something interesting to read this summer, I’d like to call your attention to a fantastic new collection, Beyond Bollywood and Broadway: Plays from the South Asian Diaspora. I learned about this collection after having the editor, Neilesh Bose, as my colleague in Colorado this past year. (You should know that although he’s not that much younger than me, Neilesh has distinguished himself as being the only person Stateside who calls me Nilanjana didi to my face, which is mildly annoying but also endearing.) Neilesh bhai moonlights as a modern South Asian historian focusing on Bengali Muslims from the 1920s through Partition, and leaving his elder "sister" behind in the alpine desert, he’ll be joining the history department at the University of North Texas next fall.

Beyond Bollywood and Broadway: Plays from the South Asian Diaspora will be officially launched August 10-11 at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center (CUNY) in New York with many of the playwrights in attendance, so do save that date if you’re in the city.

The collection includes three plays from the United States, two from Canada, three from the United Kingdom, and three from South Africa. Even if I hadn’t met Neilesh this year, I would consider the collection a must-read for those of us who groan at the news of yet another novel evoking the heady scent of mangos. The plays from the United States include a seering sendup of two desi academics (identity politics, the postcolonial condition, etc.) in Anuvab Pal’s Chaos Theory and an adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice set in 21st-century SoCal by Shishir Kurup. The other plays cover broad territory including the Bhopal disaster, absurdist theater, the hypothetical meeting of epic heroes Odysseus and Ram, domestic violence, Gujarati British youth culture, South African apartheid, and Indo-African relations. The plays are divided into sections by country, and for each country, Neilesh provides a detailed (but very readable) introduction to the historical, social, and cultural factors that distinguish South Asian migration and settlement there. There are also helpful comments on the development and role of theater in each setting. I’m always suspicious whenever people start talking about the South Asian diaspora as something that can be lumped together in a coherent whole, so I particularly appreciated these introductions. At the same time, there are recurring themes across these different diasporic locations, and these introductions direct our attention to them.

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p>

What I was however most eager to read at the outset was Aasif Mandvi‘s play, Sakina’s Restaurant. (Yes, that Aasif Mandvi, the brown guy on the Daily Show).

In 1998, Mandvi produced a brilliant one-man show, Sakina’s Restaurant, which I caught at the American Place Theater in New York. At the time, I was blown away by Mandvi’s ability to inhabit a dizzying array of characters—from Azgi, a young man who’s just arrived from India to work at an Indian restaurant on East 6th Street; to Farrida, the restaurant owner’s wife who used to be a dancer before she was married; to the restaurant owner Hakim, to his teenaged daughter, Sakina; to her Gameboy-obsessed little brother, Samir; and a young medical school student, Ali, who reveals his betrothal to Sakina as he visits a prostitute. It was Azgi, standing with his suitcase center stage, who opened the show: "Hello, my name is Azgi. I like Hamburger, Baseball, and Mr. Bob Dylan." Adopting different mannerisms and voices, Mandvi segued from one character to another in literally mid-sentence, with few if any props. To give you a sense of how this worked, in this excerpt from the written play, Azgi sits at a table at one point and suddenly morphs into the teenaged Sakina — with the aid of a hand mirror.

(AZGI moves over to the table stage left and sits down. We are now in the presence of SAKINA. She primps and preens in a large hand mirror, until she is suddenly surprised by the presence of Tom who is sitting across the table.)

SAKINA: Oh my GOD!!! (Embarrassed) I didn’t see you come in.. Wow you look great, I got your message. I can’t stay long… ‘cus I gotta get upstairs by 7:30.— Well we’re having this religious festival at our house and all these people come over and we make this food called Biriani and.. Never mind, I just gotta get back upstairs by 7:30 to help my mom get ready for it. (Pause) So, what’s up?— I’m surprised to see you because last time we talked you were like, "Sakina we are broke up"… and then you hung up the phone. What?— That’s not true!— Is that why you came here, to tell me that?(She turns and takes a deep breath and then turns back to him). No, I’m fine, I’m fine, first of all Tom, first of all, Stacey and I are the ones who started this band and Stacey and I are the only ones who can—

(She looks up at the imaginary waiter.)

Hi!–No, I’m not eating.. no neither is he, thanks, OK? —Thanks.

(Waiter leaves.)

And Stacey and I are the only ones who can kick anybody out of this band, which is not even a band yet, because Stacey still needs to learn how to to play the piano and so you are kicking me out of a band that does not even exist yet!

After speaking with Neilesh about my memories of the performance, Neilesh reminded me that for those who weren’t able to make it to its performances over a decade ago, all of this was lost. Without its being published, there was no chance of its being performed again—or ever being acknowledged as a significant literary work. And then I understood why this book was so important.

In the midst of my unpacking my house and his traveling from the States to London, I asked Neilesh a few questions over email about the project, and he was extraordinarily generous about sharing his thoughts a few hours later.

Nilanjana: Neilesh, I confess that I haven’t gotten through all the plays, but I’m looking forward to savoring each of them, one by one, throughout the summer. Let’s run through a few basics first. You’re the only South Asian historian I know who’s also comfortable on the stage. Have you always been bitten by the drama bug, or did you become interested in drama at a particular point ?

Neilesh: I think initially I was drawn to the theatre because of my elder brother, Rajesh, who is an actor and the true thespian of the family. I acted in plays in high school on a whim and I ended up really enjoying it, but as an undergraduate, I started to act in plays across various dramatic canons, like Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida, Peter Weiss’ Marat/Sade, and Hrosvitha’s trilogy Comedia Sacraea VI. Hrosvitha, by the way, was a 10th-century German nun, poetess, and playwright, and is usually crowned as the first playwright of the Middle Ages. Isn’t it wonderful to do theatre as an undergraduate! Though I have and always will love performing, as an undergraduate I began to veer even farther away from familiar desi territory: I began to delve into the theory, criticism, and history of performance, theatre, and dramatic literature. I delved so much that I wrote an undergraduate thesis on the anthropology of theatre and the ways that modern, “Western” theatre makers and theorists have conceptualized “Eastern” theatre practices in their own work, so I looked at the politics of individuals like Eugenio Barba, Jerzy Grotowski, Richard Schechner, and many others, in the pursuit of understanding “intercultural” theatre. This interest of mine, I suppose, continues to inform much of my work today. But anyway then I was drawn to large, broad questions (and I still am) but as my undergraduate days came to a close and I went to graduate school and I decided to pursue a line in South Asian studies and South Asian history, I reflected on the rather nascent state of critical studies about South Asian diasporic theatre. What is the political, aesthetic, and socio-cultural environment in which South Asian diasporic theatre workers create their art? In the South Asian theatre field, there are mountains of works addressing this topic. In the South Asian diaspora, we seem to be flooded with work on fiction, essay, poetry, and short story, but precious little about drama and theatre. As a Master’s student, I wrote a thesis, partially a continuation of my undergraduate work, about Indian theatre traditions in South Africa, as I had done undergraduate research in South Africa on that very topic. I had mentioned to my then advisor the need to document and publish many plays I had encountered—extraordinary plays written by phenomenal individuals and the products of a variety of aesthetic and political influences. My then advisor, needless to say, was not very encouraging as it was not seen (about 10 years ago) as very feasible to put together an anthology of South Asian diasporic plays by any publisher, academic or not. But how things change! When I began my doctoral studies, one of my first teachers, Sudipto Chatterjee, a specialist in modern Bengali theatre (and with whom I have translated into English a play by Utpal Dutt, Maanusher Adhikare/The Rights of Man, an extraordinary 1969 play about the American civil rights movement in Bengali), and I have collaborated on a variety of projects about Indian theatre. I still do count modern South Asian theatre as one of my research interests, but I am interested in doing more work on South Asian diasporic theatre and doing more substantive research on the theatre traditions in the countries represented in this anthology. One future project includes producing a fully fledged monograph on these countries, rather than simply reproducing plays, though that task is also quite important– both for general exposure and for producing critical and theoretical dialogue about theatre and the South Asian diaspora. I am and will always be quite multi-faceted and multi-disciplinary, but I will always be both a performer and a scholar. This is what perhaps scares my parents the most!

Nilanjana: Yes, many of us scare our parents. I think that’s why we get along. Have you had the opportunity to be involved with many South Asian-themed plays in the United States? I’m curious about whether there is much support for these productions here, as opposed to the other countries from which you’ve included selections.

Neilesh: In 2001 and 2002 I was a part of a group, South Asian American Theatre (SAATh), in Boston, that was formed to bring out the South Asian and South Asian American voice in the American theatre. I have since left Boston and that group, but it was mainly a student venture and much of the energy for theatre and performance by South Asian Americans derives from students. Though in one of my many lives I am a performer and I have performed South Asian American pieces (like Shishir Kurup’s one-person play Assimilation), in recent years my academic work has taken a front-seat. I will return to the stage, though! Though student energy and talent is quite expansive and wonderful, I think that is one distinctive factor of the American theatre, that though various individuals of South Asian descent have leapt into vaunted positions of recognition in the American theatre, we have yet to embrace a messianic playwright, institution, or set of plays by or for South Asian Americans, so we are still a collection of individuals pursuing our self-interest, rather than working in any kind of tradition. And theatre and performing arts professions are radically centered on individual, not communitarian, achievement, so it is a difficult situation to begin with. And one key factor that differentiates North American artists in the US and Canada is that we are not working within the contours of a defined politics against patterns of authority or aesthetic dominance as other groups are. So the British Asian arts movements, as you well know, derive in part as a reaction to the heavily entrenched racism of the 1970s and 1980s – politics built the need for the performing arts which then in turn built the foundations for training professional artists. And in the meanwhile, a specific audience base was formed. This is the Tara Arts story in Britain. This is comparable to the story of African American and East Asian American theatre traditions in the United States, with the Negro Ensemble Company creating plays like Douglas Turner-Ward’s Happy Ending, a landmark play in both its aesthetics and politics.

In South Africa, the situation is a bit different, as there was a vibrant anti-apartheid theatre movement (all 3 plays in the book are a part of that) with really wonderful plays, but now without a clear political enemy and with the cultural boycott seeing its natural end, there has now been a lull in playwriting and new works for the stage. But the foundation is there, whereas in the USA, there is money, training programs, and all sorts of resources, but the aesthetic and political drive is still in its formative stages. I think there is a dearth of “mainstream” support for theatre by and about South Asian Americans for a variety of reasons – one, following the idea that theatre here is without a political anchor, the great majority of individuals who pursue theatre in the South Asian American community are actors (and though they are of course necessary!) there needs to be a real infrastructure of directors willing and able to handle South Asian themed work, producers (where are our South Asian MBA brothers and sisters) willing to find funding for South Asian themed ventures, and playwrights who are writing about modern South Asian Americans. This has not happened as such and it will take a few more generations, but this is part of the agenda of the book launch and conference – to investigate the state of South Asian American theatre today and think toward the future. Incidentally, a well-known and highly regarded South Asian American actor, Manu Narayan, recently commented that television is way ahead of theatre regarding casting and inclusion – there are many roles on television for South Asian Americans (small, yes, but growing and not all flat-out stereotypes) whereas out of the 50+ plays in New York that could be cast with South Asian actors, nearly none of them are. Theatre is a business that in many ways is more conservative because it has to cater to a very specific audience. Until South Asian Americans, like African Americans, truly construct their own presence within that specific world (have a repertory of production worthy plays written by South Asians, professional theatres that showcase South Asian work, develop an audience base within the existing American theatre constituency, etc.), we’ll always be on the outside looking in.

Nilanjana: I’ve noticed that the mainstream press pays significant attention to novels and non-fiction works written by South Asian diasporic writers, so why do we not hear more often about what’s going on in the realm of drama– at least in the United States?

Neilesh: I think you hit on it right there—there is a lot of critical and popular attention paid to novels, non-fiction, and even cinema. We don’t hear about dramatic literature and theatre, and my book is a small start. One of the problems is that plays, unless they are regarded as critically brilliant and absolutely unforgettable, usually don’t hold the attention of literary critics that long anyway. Lynn Nottage, the young African American playwright, won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and I am not sure that news reaches mainstream or even many literary circles. How many literary critics know about Suzan Lori-Parks, also African American, who also won a Pulitzer and a MacArthur genius grant for her playwriting? So there is marginalization on one side—drama and theatre itself—and the further marginalization or boxing in of South Asian work. One playwright and producer, Rehana Mirza, commented on Slumdog Millionaire recently in such terms, that now such a film is out, just like when Jhumpa Lahiri won the Pulitzer Prize, every South Asian American writer was asked to write more about turmeric and cooking, and now with Slumdog Millionaire, playwrights and screenwriters are asked to write about kids in slums. My goal with the book is to at least expose to an academic audience the vitality and history of recent South Asian diasporic theatre and also to stimulate those playwrights and practitioners to get more of their work out. I also have a historical, documentary interest in that I want to make sure these works are accessible to the researcher, student, and general reader.

Nilanjana: Did most of the playwrights with whom you were working expect that their work would be published at some point for anybody to perform, or were they working with a particular performer or group in mind? How did this affect how the book came together?

Neilesh: Like my own set of academic interests, it was a mix. Some of these plays were published before in one-off venues, like Sakina’s Restaurant, some were never published before, like Anubav Pal’s Chaos Theory, and some were published by presses that don’t exist anymore, like Kriben Pillay’s Looking for Muruga, from South Africa. I think many did not expect their work to be published, and it was really my own interest and vision that brought them together. So they have no real connection other than my own historical and aesthetic eye. This is good and bad – good in that I think interesting connections arise (an American adaptation of Western classics, e.g. Merchant on Venice next to a British Asian adaptation of the Ramayana and Odyssey makes for interesting aesthetic and political comparisons). But also as this is a rather wide sweep, we have the absurdist Death of Abbie Hoffman, chosen primarily because it is an adaptation of an avant-garde Bengali play Micchil (Procession) by Badal Sircar, alongside Bhopal, a realist play about the tragedy. Taken just as plays, the plays often have nothing to do with each other, and so someone wanting to produce South Asian diasporic theatre would not be able to just take these plays and do them – they all have very specific cultural and aesthetic-political references. So I think I really wanted to make the book historically relevant as opposed to a collection that any practitioner can produce. But then there is nearly nothing in this field anyway, so this is a start that I hope others will add to. I mention in the book that many writers’ plays were left out – like Hanif Kureishi’s Borderline (incidentally Tara Arts is producing an adaptation of his Black Album at the National Theatre UK this summer) or Rajesh Gopie’s Out of Bounds, or Muthal Naidoo’s Flight from the Mahabharata. I hope that future scholars and/or playwrights will take the opportunity to work on documenting and publishing more work in this genre.

Nilanjana: Are there any plans to perform any of these plays Stateside in the near future?

Neilesh: Well, there is hope that Merchant on Venice will be picked up – it was produced by the Silk Road Theatre Project in 2007, considered by many professional theatres, and may occur in 2010. I am trying to promote the South African plays, particularly Lahnee’s Pleasure, for a 2010 festival about the 150th anniversary of Indian indentured labor in South Africa.

Nilanjana: Anything else you’d like to add?

Neilesh: Nothing except my thanks to you!!!

Nilanjana: You’re always welcome!

Zeb and Haniya are two Pakistani women cousins, Haniya Aslam and Zeb (Zebunissa) Bangash, who make fantastic music. Two weeks ago, they were awarded “Best Live Act” in the MTV Pakistan Music Awards. They are Pashtuns (Pathans) whose families are based in the town of Kohat in the North West Frontier province.

Zeb & Haniya is the music I want to listen to on a Sunday morning/afternoon— great vocals; and not so mellow that I wander back into bed, but not so aggressive that I’m further traumatized the first few hours I’m up after a late night out. Their music draws on a number of different traditions– folk, the blues, jazz, rock, swing (!), ghazals, qawwali, Hindustani classical music, and Turkish and Lebanese music; Manish calls them a “little too pop,” but I think there’s more going on there.

They’ve received a fair amount of press in India and in the States because they defy outsiders’ expectations of the Pashtun valley. Last summer, they commented on music’s role in Pathan culture:

In their grandmother’s house in Kohat in the North-West Frontier Province, recall Zeb and Haniya, there were always “lots of harmoniums and tablas lying around.” Their uncles, “all big strapping Pathan men,” sang “beautifully.” And their grandmother too wrote and sang in three languages — Pashto, Urdu and Punjabi… “We are not fighting our culture to make music. When Pathan families get together, there’s lots of fun, lots of food, lots of meat, and lots of music. That has been fading away from our experience and other people’s perception of Pathan culture. It is something we want to reclaim,” said Zeb.

While they sing mostly in Urdu, one of their ten songs, “Paimana Bideh,” on Chup is an adaptation of a folk song in Dari and Pashto:

Their video for the song “Aitebar,” which NPR PRI’s “The World: Global Hit” commentator Aaron Schachter playfully called “Clapton-esque,” features two modern dancers and is a far cry from the booty-shaking Bollywood video, for which I’m thankful. Here’s how they describe what’s going on in the video:

The basic concept is a woman who’s ended the relationship and she’s symbolically closing the house where she spent time with her partner, husband, we don’t know, that’s been left open. And as she goes through each room she relives a part of her relationship that coincides with what we’re singing about, the emotion we’re trying to express. So sometimes it’s anger, sometimes it’s hatefulness, nostalgia, freedom, some sort of tension.

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Zeb & Haniya began performing professionally in 2000-2003 when they were college students at Mount Holyoke and Smith Colleges in the Pioneer Valley. Since graduating, they’ve built a solid fan base in Pakistan through their website and live performances. Check them out if you haven’t already!

Sri Lanka last night scored a major propaganda coup when the UN human rights council praised its victory over the Tamil Tigers and refused calls to investigate allegations of war crimes by both sides in the final chapter of a bloody 25-year conflict. In a shock move, which dismayed western nations critical of Sri Lanka’s approach, the island’s diplomats succeeded in lobbying enough of its south Asian allies to pass a resolution describing the conflict as a “domestic matter that doesn’t warrant outside interference”.

The UN also criticized the Tamil Tigers for using civilians as human shields in addition to supporting the Sri Lankan government’s decision to restrict international aid groups’ access to refugee camps.

The decision has already come under fire from human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Human Rights Watch condemned the UN decision as one that had failed victims:

The United Nations Human Rights Council on May 27 passed a deeply flawed resolution on Sri Lanka that ignores calls for an international investigation into alleged abuses during recent fighting and other pressing human rights concerns, Human Rights Watch said today. The council held a special session on May 26 and 27, 2009, on the human rights situation in Sri Lanka, a week after the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) by government forces.

“The Human Rights Council did not even express its concern for the hundreds of thousands of people facing indefinite detention in government camps,” said Juliette de Rivero, Geneva advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “The council ignored urgent needs and wasted an important chance to promote human rights… It is deeply disappointing that a majority of the Human Rights Council decided to focus on praising a government whose forces have been responsible for the repeated indiscriminate shelling of civilians,” said de Rivero. “These states blocked a message to the government that it needs to hear, to ensure access to displaced civilians and uphold human rights standards. They undermined the very purpose of the council.”

As for how this happened, the resolution passed with 29 votes in favor, 12 against, and 6 abstentions. The 12 votes that were seeking a more critical resolution included [corrected] Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; the countries that led efforts to push the resolution forward in its present form included Brazil, Cuba, India, and Pakistan.

The news of the decision (posted in the news feed) is still recent, so I’m sure we’ll hear more reactions in the next few hours. [Updated: the actual resolution can be found here. Thanks, ptr_vivek]

As most of you probably already know, over the last decade, the market for Indian art exploded, to the extent that it was considered a “sensible investment.” (Snarky aside to all those artsy types snickering at the thought of bankers, engineers, and doctors suddenly interested in Indian art: they paid your rent.)

V.S. Gaitonde, Untitled, 1973

Of course, we’re in a different world now. A painting by a giant like V.S. Gaitonde can still be expected to yield an impressive sum, but since March there’s been some buzz suggesting that the market for Indian modern and contemporary art is heading south. As of May, it’s pretty clear that consumers are losing their confidence in Indian modern and contemporary art as an investment; London-based research company ArtTactic suggests global consumer confidence levels in Indian art have dropped 63%, and in contemporary Indian art, 90%.

While I was living nearer to New York a few years ago, exhibitions and galleries focusing on South Asian modern and contemporary art were a cheap thrill on a graduate student stipend. You still can see amazing things, but having made the mistake this morning of looking at my last TIAA-CREF statement, I worry about how all these riches will last. (Ok, to be honest, I’m wondering if I myself will last. Breathe in, breathe out.)

What do those of you who buy this art and follow what’s going on in the art world make of all this? [Edited: if you're not an Ambani and don't follow art, you're also welcome to dish.] And if you’ve been to any amazing shows lately, by all means, spread the word!