The music is by Basheer & The Pied Pipers. Visit Nushmia.net for more about Khan and her trip to Pakistan (“Leaving Pindi is always hard” and “It’s a man’s world”).

Gov. Jindal spent a good portion of his speech yesterday (full text) on the topic of education and ended with cheers of Who Dat! and Geaux Tigers! in support of the state’s sports teams.

Aakash Nihalani’s solo exhibition in India opened on September 24 and runs through October 22 at Seven Art Ltd. in New Delhi. Aalign presents new works in metal and wood sculpture, embroidered patterns on silk, interactive work shown on a tablet, and the installations of colorful, geometric tape work on the street for which he became known in New York. Nihalani shared a few thoughts after I asked him about his experiences in New Delhi and the differences and/or similarities between making street art in New York and New Delhi.

“It’s definitely been an interesting experience in Delhi….you do work in public spaces in New York and people are pretty used to seeing it, or at least the idea of street art. But here it’s a strange thing for someone to encounter a guy putting tape on a brick wall, or in a fruit stand. I feel like the ‘art’ you find on the streets in India is either functional, on signs and such, or religious, so it’s cool to be putting up work with a more abstract intention for people to experience.

It seems like Indians, including the authorities, don’t jump to the assumption that anything done on the street is vandalism, as they do back home in NY, but they are definitely still cautious of it….

And while the walls in india are tough to work on with tape, because they’re so dusty and often moist, the colors and the texture, and the deterioration of the walls make an amazing back drop for my clean bright lines.”

Images from Aakash Nihalani

People Magazine recently spotted Padma Lakshmi’s young daughter wearing a colorful, traditional outfit. Will celebrity-watching fashionista parents soon be on the lookout for tiny pattu-langas (apparently also called pattu pavada) at their local baby boutiques? Perhaps, though they might have better luck finding these children’s outfits at online bazaars.

I can’t remember my first pattu-langa, but there’s probably a picture of me in it in one of my parents’ photo albums. When we were growing up, my sisters and I, and more recently my niece, were dressed up in these silky, shiny outfits for special events or big family parties. The langa or skirt part of my outfits was longer, going down to my feet. But I also like the style worn by Krishna because in addition to its pretty purple hue, its shorter length looks like it could be easier to wear while toddling around as a baby.

Hit up YouTube for more pattu-langa cuteness.

Photo: desiVastra

Here is the caption as to the origin of the picture:

I came across this photograph recently. It is a photo of British veterans of the American Civil War of 1861-65. The British veterans had gathered in London in 1917 to welcome the American troops on their way to Fight in France during World War One. Among them is (I believe ) a Sikh gentlemen sitting near the centre. I am curious to see if there were any Sikhs in the US army at this time.I am trying to discover this persons story as it is seems very interesting. Any insight in this matter would be most appreciated. -R.S. Kooner

Keep in mind that service in the U.S. military has always been one path to citizenship.

This may look like it’s from a picture postcard, but it was a surprise for me to see a lone fisherman in the Jaffna lagoon where fishing had been totally banned during most of the past two decades. The ceasefire, despite its problems, had added a ray of hope for many people of the Northern & Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka.

–photographer Sri Walpola on “Jaffna Fisherman”

–

This is the episode in which we are on Staten Island! Because a friend recently tipped me off to this:

War & Peace in Sri Lanka Photos by Sri Walpola (Click for the show’s official description. Thanks, Deepti! I am not posting any of the photos here, for obvious reasons … but if you scroll to the end of the post, you’ll see two ways to see some of them much of the rest of the show too. EDITOR’S NOTE/UPDATED 8/11: Sri Walpola and I have been trading messages, and he generously offered to send me pictures to put up here. I have interspersed them with the text that I originally posted, and included his captions.)

Unless you are already lucky enough to live on Staten Island, head to the ferry and take the boat over there. Staten Island has a substantial Sri Lankan community, and indeed, if you find your way into the St. George Library Center (not far from where the ferry docks) and a kindly library staffer thinks you look Sri Lankan and/or confused, he may not even wait for you to ask where the show is before he points you downstairs, toward the reference room. It is possible that this is the warmest reaction you will ever have to being profiled.

If it is the weekend, neighborhood residents will be reading, or perhaps checking e-mail. Comfy chairs and tables are scattered about. Card catalogs, tables. The people leafing through newspapers or working quietly on laptops will not look up to watch you scan what hovers above their heads: the photography of Sri Walpola, a former presidential photographer in Sri Lanka. His pictures of the civil war in Sri Lanka are on display here for the first time in the U.S.

The twentysome pictures on the walls range from heartbreakingly hopeful pictures of the ceasefire to devastating portraits of families separated by fences and displays of military and militant firepower. Some of the pictures are printed in a high gloss; others are matte, so that they appear almost like oils, or old movie stills. A friend describes one as especially painterly–a Jaffna fisherman standing in his boat, the blue of the background dark and pure behind him, the line between water and sky nearly seamless.

(ED 8/11: Obviously that’s the photo up top. Click for more of his pics.)

I was reminded of the obstacles to peace when I saw this man trying to protect the flame of a candle he had lit to mark the second anniversary of the ceasefire.

–Sri Walpola on “Peace Candle”

I was shocked, but lucky to be able to capture on camera a soldier ‘arresting’ a Tamil youth after the bombing of the Kolonnawa oil storage tanks in October 1995.

–Sri Walpola on “Into Custody”

This family was separated by barbed wire that underscored the plight of internally displaced Tamil civilians who faced severe hardships in Vavuniya IDP camps at the height of fighting between troops and Tigers.

–Sri Walpola on “Across the Fence”

A female Tamil Tiger cadre buying a Valentine’s day card in another picture prompts this caption: “I was struck by the romance of this Tamil Tiger woman cadre buying a Valentine’s Day card for a loved one. Even the most hardened military fighters can have a romantic streak in them.” Another shot shows an ex-Tamil Tiger child soldier, perhaps twelve, smiling as a UNICEF executive stands near him. A third Tiger photograph depicts the ranks of Black Tigers in a rare public appearance, their faces covered by dark cloth.

On one wall, Jaffna children hang over the balcony rails at their school, waving at a chopper. “Changing times,” the caption notes. “Children wave at a helicopter bringing Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to Jaffna in 2002. Instead of waving at the helicopter, the children would have fled to underground bunkers if they heard a helicopter before the ceasefire.” And there is a picture of a library in the library: The Jaffna Public Library, burned by thugs in 1981 and reconstructed years later. Jaffna schoolchildren do their exercises before the white building, clad in white shirts and blue shorts.

Many of the shots were taken in Sri Lanka’s northern region; in two, people (and presumably the photographer) stand perilously near unexploded shells. In another, weapons are purposefully detonated: a blast in Killinochchi makes smoke billow into the air, as the fruits of demining teams’ harvest are destroyed.

This has been a long trip already. You may feel not only contemplative, but also hungry. After you leave the show, walk a short distance to Sanrasa, and eat a plate of koththu roti, or perhaps some chicken curry and an order of four hoppers, an egg bobbling gently on top of the last one. (Thanks for the recommendation, Samip, friend of a friend and whom I have never met but who is reportedly the keeper of cool.) You may be surprised to know some of the other patrons; by the end of the meal, you will also be chatty with your waiter. Plan to take photos of the food, so you can stare at them later. Forget because you are so hungry. Later your friend will probably have one from the other time he was here. (Thanks, Vivek.)

When full, skip the bus–you need to stroll it off!–and walk a bit farther to New Asha. It will take you about a quarter of an hour, but you have to earn a second reward. When you get there, if you remembered to call ahead for your take-out, you can claim your mutton rolls (or veg!) and another order of koththu; if you forgot, dawdle in the adjacent grocery while they cook, and consider the woodapple jam. When the rolls are ready, ask for two plastic bags; if the grease soaks through, your own tote will be not-so-delicately scented for weeks.

Take the ferry back whenever; it runs 24/7, just like the rest of New York. When you go home and Google “Sri Walpola,” you may realize that much of the show is on the Internet. Consider, briefly, feeling foolish. But the boat ride! The quiet, meditative space of the library as an uncanny setting for those photos! The koththu! The food hoarding! A worthwhile journey, after all.

Don’t forget to put your takeout in the freezer. And maybe donate to the NYPL.

(Second photo also by Vivek, who notes that if you take the Staten Island Ferry and then go to New Asha, you will have passed Liberty on the way to Victory. Yes, I know. Sometimes I wonder if Sri Lankan cuisine’s lack of cheese pains him.)

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg took a break from rewriting his company’s privacy policy last winter to attend the wedding of two of his employees in India. Facebook’s Principal Project Manager Ruchi Sanghvi and Director of Engineering Aditya Agarwal were married in January.

Fast Company reported these details about the ceremony back in February:

…Zuckerberg and more than a dozen past-and-present Facebook indispensables — including now-departed cofounders Adam D’Angelo and Dustin Moskovitz — trekked to a beach in Goa, India, for a week-long family celebration. Everyone dressed in costumed splendor; Zuckerberg looked fetching in a maroon silk sherwani. Women flashed henna tattoos. The groom arrived on horseback.

The photo above was one of five pictures from the wedding that were recently submitted to a photo contest on the Indian IT news site Techgoss. Receiving the photos was a big coup for the site, as they had unsuccessfully tried to photograph Zuckerberg both while he was in India for the wedding and during his 2008 trip to the country.

Of course, the first thing I thought when I saw this photo was that it was the perfect entry for a caption contest. So have at it, Mutineers. Leave your wittiest and most creative captions below.

(Via Valleywag)

…contender-to-watch Vanya, so sassy in her blue and black frock. I can’t help it. She’s the reason why I’m writing this post. Well, that and because luminous Mutineer Nilanjana tweeted the link to this picture– and had she not made like a virtual, social-media bird, I would have never seen such a delightful image of last year’s Scripps National Spelling Bee champion, Kavya Shivashankar (on the left), meeting the President, with her family proudly beside her.Back to Vanya. Little girl is so blase about meeting the most important person in the world. Hands on her lips, nary a smile on them lips, she’s sizing him up…and I’d give almost anything to know what her verdict was.

As for Kavya, I apologize in advance for what I am about to type (because it is pointless drivel). It all hits too close for ex-spelling bee-participant (and loser!) me. That long hair (though at 14, my hair was down to my knees), that prim clasping of hands, that shy smile. Unlike Kavya and Vanya however, I was never allowed to wear black. My father thought it a terrible, inauspicious color; he also, with all the pragmatism of an engineer, dismissed any notion of it being flattering. “You have darker skin. Wear white. Looks good. Black is for white people.” Tell that to a teen secretly brooding to Sisters of Mercy and Bauhaus.

Obama spent fifteen minutes with the Shivashankars, earlier this month. Kavya had to wait a year for her Presidential prize:

“It was just so electrifying,” Kavya said afterward. “When I won the bee last year, I asked when I was going to get to meet the president. I thought it might not happen. But just two days ago, we got the call.”

The family and the president chatted about the spelling bee, which was going on at that very moment at a hotel just a few blocks away, and the importance he places on education. Then Vanya said she had a question.

“Are you going to ask me to spell something?” Obama asked.

But Vanya just wanted to ask about Bo, the president’s dog. [link]

The little girl has sass, but the Bee took a pass:

A brief cab ride through the rain took them back to the Grand Hyatt Washington hotel, the site of the bee, where they learned that Vanya — the youngest speller in this year’s competition — had not made the cut to today’s semifinals.

But no one in the family seemed downcast, least of all her.

“It was just a great experience being on the stage and spelling the words, even if you get it wrong,” she said. [link]

With an attitude like that, I have a feeling the Shivashankars will be back in the Oval Office, some year soon…

All images (c) Preston Merchant