Hi, everyone. For the last few years I’ve been pretty much fulltime over at our twitter franchise, one of a few people trying to make sure you get all your savory brownness in an 140 character packet. As a result, I’m afraid I’m a bit rusty at this longer-form blogging.

But the truth is, as my exes can attest, I’ve never been any good at final goodbyes. I even skipped the funeral of a close friend because I couldn’t stand the finality involved in watching him get cremated, even though I knew he was already gone. But I’m afraid there’s no way to skip your own wake, and once you’re there, you might as well try to deliver a eulogy, awkward as it is.

Part of the problem is that Sepia was never just one thing, it was many. There were the blog posts, but that was just the tip of the iceberg, the part you could see. There was also everything that happened out of view, so many stories that I don’t think any one of us knows them all.

Fun fact: VH-1 once considered a “Behind the Blogging” special on Sepia Mutiny, but decided the truth (replete with biting off the heads of live bats) was too bizarre to be believed. That, and MTV-Iggy said “I’ll cut you, VH-1, Sepia is my bitch! Don’t you go near it!”

The other part of the invisible sepia, the spirit rather than the body, of course, was you all. This is what we never could have forseen when we started the blog, just four guys and one girl, all plugged into a group chat session on (gasp) AOL chat, that such a giant community would spring up around the blog, that people would continue the connections they formed in the comments and continue them, both online and offline, elsewhere. This was both our greatest triumph and our undoing.

Like any club, once we became popular, we lost some of the attributes that made us a hip watering hole in the first place. The comment section changed. We spent too much time and energy policing comments, and even so, it was impossible to maintain the vibe that first brought people here. Plus, as Facebook grew stronger, people simply took their conversations elsewhere, into private spaces.

That’s fine though. Eight years is a good run, longer than most sitcoms, the entire possible lifetime of a Presidential administration, and far longer than I thought we had any possibility of surviving.

We certainly had no idea what we were creating at the time, how many people we would touch, how it would affect each of us, and how, in the end, it would gently unravel. It’s hard to believe all the things that we achieved, as well as all the things that happened that I still cannot tell you about.

I could show you a slow montage of our greatest moments, all slung together in the standard narrative of the rise and fall of a rock-and-roll band, but that would be bullshit. Sepia was never about the commercial, the slick, the neatly manufactured. At our best we were messy, fractious, incoherent, and full of life.

My most famous post, Straight eye for the guerilla guy, could have used a good deal more polishing and refinement. Yet that didn’t stop it from being widely pirated and going viral, in the sincerest form of flattery.

So this, post #539, is my messy, poorly written, farewell and love letter to Sepia, both official and invisible, singular and plural, inside and out.

(Most likely, we’ll keep tweeting from @sepiamutiny for a little while longer, sort of the way the body of a chicken keeps running around, long after the head has been cut off. After that, you can catch me at my new twitter handle @ennismutinywale, and the rest of the crew at their twitter handles and personal blogs in turn.)

Though it took over two weeks for most readers to realize that the site’s demise was imminent, surprisingly, those patrons denied the reality of a declining readership after coming to rely upon the site during eight long years of Mutinous blogging.

Nine people had nearly identical reactions to the news: “What? No! Why? Of course people still read it! I mean, I don’t, but…it should stay alive. We need it!”

One of the 816 Ami Shahs from Chicago, Illinois (read: south Naperville…she just likes to SAY “Chicago” because she likes to pretend she’s Carrie from “Sex in the City” amirite?) was overheard telling her friend Priya Cherian why the site mattered.

“Sepia Mutiny taught me that not all Indian Christians are sell-outs like Bobby Jindal. Like, I totally loathed you until that drama queen  A N N A  kept going on and on…and on…about the plight of the poor pitiable Malayalam Christian. Like, I totally thought YOU were some lame convert, you know? Because your name is like Priya? But apparently you’ve been literally a Christian for like, years. So you’re fine.”

Priya Cherian side-eyed her friend before expanding on Shah’s…remarks.

“I think  A N N A  was the WORST thing for Malayalee Christians, ever. She found a way to make EVERY post about herself. Tibetan nudists who swear by paleo diets? Bitch was somehow ALL up in that! I mean, what, the, f–oh, right. Sepia Mutiny. Um…well I guess I’m sad? I used to read it every day but I admit that it’s been years since I found it THAT relevant…but I still catch up on it once a week. And it’s super irritating to realize they’re taking that away, you know?

I’m going to miss having the option to tune in…I mean, I donated once back in 2007. Doesn’t that count for ANYTHING? Money doesn’t grow on trees! I still have student loans from Yale to pay off! Oh…did I mention Yale. I…I meant to say…from this school in New Haven. You know…”

Continuing on the “I stuck a grimy dollar bill in your G-string once, now DANCE FOREVER”-tip, anonymous commenter…er…”anonymous” expressed similar anger and resentment to this reporter.

“Like others, I will miss SM. Also, I felt the money I donated to the site has gone to waste. I would like a refund. I was under the impression that my one-time, ten dollar gift would guarantee my access to a Sepia that was eternal, no matter how haggard the SM Intern got.  I heard A N N A and Ennis’ moms want to finally arrange caste and faith-appropriate marriages for each of them and they need to leave the bunker for that? What the shit? Write more posts, blogger-monkeys!”

In Queens, the mood was decidedly more pessimistic. “Hipster Dey See 69″ muttered, “I’ll tell you what killed SM– censorship!” as he crumpled his fourth can of PBR.

“In its glory days, it was ok to be pissed off at someone’s post or comment and respond to it, however crudely, with threats or personal insults hurled from an anonymous haven where accountability was nonexistent. Then they started cracking down on discussion.

They forgot that the number of comments they had was because everybody had different or even certifiably insane views on everything (opinions against the bloggers maybe?) and wanted to share them. You know who was the worst? That Taz chick. I mean, she’d get so butt hurt if anyone told the truth about how Muslims are all terrorist murderers. I have the right to say that, you know? I’m American. These bloggers should go back to wherever they came from if they don’t believe in freedom of speech!”, he thundered before belching a noxious gas cloud that reeked of stale, vinegary curry and prodigious amounts of nose pickings.

Meanwhile, in Silicon Valley, because that is a specific, Pacific place and not some vague phrase, recent college grad Nikhil was morose and frankly, behaving in a manner reminiscent of a petite feminine dog.

“Why can’t they just let the new generation take over? They and by they, I mean I am fresh-faced and hungry to keep that site alive and capitalize on the hard work and dreams of my elders, even as I scoff at them for being has-beens while simultaneously wishing their ancient asses would keep on blogging for my convenience and pleasure.

But really though, I feel that the bloggers just got too old. Their senility must be why they never responded to my 208+ tip submissions, which I started sending off in 2008. Every time I updated my personal blog, ‘Random Thoughts and Musings of a Hurlbut Desi’, I dutifully sent them a link to posts on topics that ranged from my review of Russell Peter’s last show to why Indian girls suck.

Each semester, I would compile a ‘Best of’ list to include with my top ten reasons for why I should be their next blogger (screw ‘Guest Blogger’…what am I, from Cornell or Penn?) Despite my persistence and superior qualifications, they never contacted me. You know, what? Eff Sepia Mutiny. And it’s not like any of them went to Harvard, either. Well, except for that one chick…but she’s Sri Lankan. So she doesn’t count. I mean, do they ever? Also, here’s my resume…do you think you could pass it to Vinod? Thanks, bro.”

Hetal Parikh, a super Senior at Columbia University had this reaction to the end of a once seminal, path-breaking group blog: “Wait, what? Those assholes hacked into my AIM and totally posted my chats once, like five years ago. Good %$#$%! riddance. What did they ever even accomplish? Who cares about a blog? Private Facebook group, maybe but a blog? Get a life. Also, if that spinster  A N N A  needs an egg donor now that she’s 52, tell her that I’ll give her a pity discount since she’s probably poor. Also, tell her how awesome I’m being, since I’m young and Ivy-educated and shit. I charged that I-Banker couple $20,000 so my goods are premium, yo.”

Finally, Maninderpreetjeet Singh of Nome, Alaska glumly characterized it as “The end of a wonderful era.”

“Sepia Mutiny– in its prime– was almost addictive. I had conversations on that blog that couldn’t have possibly occurred anywhere else…certainly not here, where I’m one of all of 3,600 residents. Do you think there are any Desis up here? No. But I never felt alone after I found that site. It was my haven.

I honestly think it was beneficial for my mental health. I know it was beneficial for my social life– I made so many friends via SM. A few of them even came up in March two years ago for the Iditarod. It was awesome. We kept mentioning how this random, awesome meetup was occurring because some guy emailed four people and said, ‘Hey, let’s do this!’…and they created something special. Honestly? I thought there really could be something like ‘Sepia Destiny‘. If there had been, I’d probably be married already. Anyway. Please tell the mutineers that their blog was special, and I’ll always remember it fondly. Tell them I said, ‘Thanks.’”

NEW TIME: 2:30pm – 6:30pm

NEW LOCATION: The Liberties Bar, 998 Guerrero Street  San Francisco, CA 94110

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What’s that you say? It’s the end of a mutinous era and you never even made it to a Sepia Mutiny Meetup? Rajni the Monkey went wild in the bunker once he heard this news and is now throwing poop at your computer screen. But ask and The Mutiny delivers – at least for the next 15 days till the April 1st door slam. ANNA revived the 55 Friday because of this tweet and hell, thanks to this forlorn tweet from @YungCoconut and @AmericanTurban, I will do the same.

Join Manish, Vinod, Pavani and myself for the Cali swagest meetup of your mutinous lifetime in San Francisco on Saturday March 31st. We know that you Alterna-Desi types have already bought your tickets to the 8th annual Yoni Ki Baat performance. “Yoni Ki heh…?” you ask? Desi, please.

South Asian Sisters are back again to present another brand new script with funny, touching, sensational, and thought-provoking raw performances submitted by South Asian women across the country! [southasiansisters]

For more info and to purchase tickets to the March 31st & April 1st San Francisco Yoni Ki Baat shows, please check out their site here.

As for the LAST CHANCE AT GOING TO A SEPIA MUTINY MEETUP…

• New Time: 2:30pm – 6:30pm
• Date: Saturday, March 31st, 2012
• New Location: The Liberties Bar, 998 Guerrero Street  San Francisco, CA 94110
• Facebook Event Page Right Here

Please comment below if you will be able to make it! Since this is the last meetup – EVER – I highly suggest out-of-towners fly into SF for a Cesar Chavez long weekend of Mutinous fun. If you have a bar/lounge suggestion (that is open at 4:30pm) do let me know and we can change the local, as long as we keep it in The Mission. And if you can’t come to the meetup but want to keep in touch - you can always find us on twitter, too.

It’s not goodbye – it’s just a farewell, for now. I’ll see y’all on the internet flip side and by that I mean IRL.

It’s been an eventful 24 hours, hasn’t it? The end of an “era”, is how some of you readers generously termed it on various social media sites. It’s really just the end of a site that was once bigger in every way than it currently is. What was once a “must-read-daily” turned in to an “Eh, I’ll poke my head in weekly”-sort of a blog and that’s perfectly understandable. The party has been over for a little while. But while many of you wish we would stay around for at least those weekly visits (you are creatures of routine, aren’t you!), that wouldn’t be right.

We can, however, resurrect SOMETHING weekly: the 55Friday flash fiction challenge. See? I didn’t ignore ALL your tweeted pleas.

I know in the past that I picked a theme to help you start your engines, but somehow, I don’t think that will be necessary this time. Write about whatever you like– just contain yourself in 55 words when you do it. Ready? For old time’s sake…go.

For you poetry noobs, a haiku is a Japanese verse form that employs sentences in the 5-7-5-syllable pattern.  Last year, we received a number of heartfelt entries from our readers. (And quite a few deliciously cheeky ones. Amitava, I’m looking at your “Size does not matter, you say. This small haiku in place of my — uhmmm — love” piece.) Come on, you can do it, mutineers. Give it a shot. Your Valentine will thank you.

Deadline: Submit all Valentine’s Day haikus in the comments below by 1PM on Friday, February 10. Please include an email address in your comments so that we can notify the winner.

2012 Theme: Love, ishq, pyar, mohabbatein, kadhal, prema, premam, et. al.

Winner: Winner will be announced in the comments on Tuesday,  February 14, 2012.

Judge: Amitava Kumar – writer, journalist and professor of English at Vassar college.

Prize: Winner gets a copy of The 50 Greatest Love Letters of All Time, along with a personalized, handmade Valentine containing their haiku – mailed to the person of their choice (mom, dad, sis, BFF, bf, gf, yourself, etc.) by Valentine’s Day.

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Legend: Phillygrrl Nilanjana Sugi Vivek

There are times when Paris is (unwillingly) touched by other cultures. (“Stop touching me!” “I’m not touching you! I’m not touching you!”) (Touché! Sorry, couldn’t resist.) The touch may be temporary — like a spritz of (jasmine? can it be jasmine?) perfume. (There’s always the possibility of sandalwood. Or… even better for the hippie love fest, Patchouli!!!!!) Or it can open up a well-established world hiding in plain sight. (Like a woman in a burka?! Sign me up!)

This, by the way, has nothing to do with how Paris has clobbered other cultures.

Because I just noticed, This is Paris’s India moment.

In December, Karl Lagerfeld took inspiration from India for his Paris-Bombay collection for Chanel, which included Nehru jackets, sweaters that draped like saris and opulent beading and embroidery. (Hermès! Don’t forget the actual saris lovingly targeting the Indian luxury market. I want.) “Paris-Delhi-Bombay,” which examined India through the prism of 50 Indian and French artists, was the Centre Pompidou’s most ambitious exhibition (no, really, taking on India was really going out on a limb) of the past year. And on Jan. 27, the Petit Palais museum will display nearly 100 paintings and designs by Rabindranath Tagore, the Bengali poet who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Having begun to paint late in life, he created a large body of works on paper — bold, bright, jungle-like! tropical! visions of fantasy and inscrutable mystery. (As the spawn of Tagore-o-philes, I’ll note that the man had also had a blue period, i.e. not so bright. But Asian people are all om happy and peaceful, so let’s not talk about that.)

In fact, Paris has long contained spicy hot pockets of Indian culture. Soo, how long has Paris’s India moment been going on, exactly? The Musée Guimet, for example, houses a small but serious collection of Indian art, including sculptures of wood, clay, basalt, bronze, sandstone and schist dating from as early as the third millennium B.C.

There’s good shopping, too. (Forget art, I’m all about the shopping.) Mandalas, one of my favorite boutiques in Paris, and where I bring visitors looking for gifts, is not French but Indian-Tibetan. For about 30 euros, you can find the most beautiful drop earrings with semiprecious stones from Jaipur. (Yaks, camels, it’s all the same. Speaking of… I so love momos!!!! Damn. Now I’m hungry.) And at Le Cachemirien, a shop in the heart of Saint Germain, Rosenda Meer sells some of the finest cashmere in Paris. A double-sided shawl — moss green on one side and muted rust on the other — costs 1,500 euros (or 5 if you go to the street corner, but then what would I have to brag about?).

Yet if you know where to look (and of course I do), there is a more complex picture of Indian Paris just beyond the gemstones. The French had a reed-thin colonial connection to the subcontinent, and in 1674, on behalf of Louis XIV, they negotiated the creation of a trading post at Pondicherry on the southeastern coast of the Bay of Bengal. It changed hands over the centuries before rejoining India in 1956, but it has retained a soupçon of Frenchness (as well it should). (Been a while since I followed the adventures of Mireille, so I had to look ‘soupçon’ up. It translates not only into “hint” but also “suspicion,” and the second works better here, imo.)

The region also sent a small number of Indian Tamils to Paris, who were joined by other Tamil refugees after Indian and Sri Lankan independence in the late 1940s (with smaller numbers of Punjabis, Bengalis, Sikhs and Gujaratis to follow). More came to France in the 1980s after Britain made it harder for immigrants from the subcontinent to settle there. It doesn’t really matter WHY any of them came or in what context – from some countries as refugees, from some as economic migrants, and from some as one then the other. The point is: A pocket of the 10th Arrondissement northeast of the Gare du Nord became “Little India.” And that’s GREAT for us shoppers! Um, also, it has loads of non-Indians! The Sri Lankans mostly came way AFTER the 1940s! And not all the Tamils were refugees! But don’t trouble yourself! All Tamil people are the same! Everywhere! They have a hive mind like the Borg! Don’t worry about the silly context! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lankan_Tamil_diaspora#France

The neighborhood is rough-edged, working class and very authentic (read: poor). So authentic that I clutched my Chanel bag closely to my side to ward off the peasants. Is that sentence for real? I am actually out of snark, that sentence is so stunning. VERY AUTHENTIC. If you come, check your map and plot a walking route in advance (or you’ll get mugged). When you emerge from the Chapelle Metro, you don’t want to look like you’re lost (or you’ll get mugged). Or like a tourist. (Or even vaguely North African.) The area is more adventurous than dangerous (heh, who am I kidding, I was terrified and made my driver come with me), but still it’s not Saint-Germain-des-Pres. You will, however, always find someone who speaks more English than French.

If a gritty urban settings [sic] leaves you skittish (as it does me), call Poonam Chawla and she, with the help of her son Nikhil Bhowmick, will guide you on a tour of the neighborhood. She also runs a small cooking school specializing in northern Indian cuisine (with simple recipes learned from her mother (or quite possibly, Top Chef’s Padma Lakshmi)) from her apartment in the upscale 16th Arrondissement. (Confused about the Punjabi-Bengali action going on here between mother and son, and how it may affect the authenticity of N. Indian cuisine. I mean, there could be some Pakistani and Bengali food thrown in there, and that is so not authentically Indian.)

The first time I visited the neighborhood, I came in search of small colorful metal bangles worn by young girls (or just women of all ages). (They come in cylinders with about 24 bangles each, and about a dozen bangles mixed together make perfect napkin rings (So for a dinner party of 12, purchase six boxes of bangles. Or just skip the bangles altogether and substitute out-of-season diamond tennis bracelets for a whimsical, fun effect.) I passed shops selling Bollywood DVDs at bargain prices and Indian tailors, food shops, restaurants and travel agencies offering cheap flights to India. (Where’s a good halal butcher when you need one? Oh wait. That’s not Indian. That’s Queens.)

I found the bangles in the sari and costume jewelry shops that dot the Faubourg Saint-Denis, the main street of the neighborhood. These are busy shops that cater to brides-to-be, and many are not accustomed to curious Westerners who aren’t necessarily there to buy (just to gawk at the inscrutable mystery! Y’all know Western isn’t code for white, right?). But Chennai Silks is particularly welcoming. Saris there start at 25 euros and go up to the hundreds for a fine one of beaded and embroidered. Indian Designs dazzles with its wall of costume and real necklaces and earrings, and offers more than 150 patterns of bangles, hundreds of saris and fine cotton embroidered pajamas (they’re called salwars, not pajamas) for men and women. When it’s not too busy, Abdul Aziz Ansari, the owner, will show you around. (I heart Aziz Ansari! I’m so there!!!!) I was waiting for someone to be unable to resist that one.

I ventured onward to VS CO Cash & Carry, a large grocery with mysterious (because I can’t be bothered to find out what they are) spiked (With what? Has potential… ) vegetables and half a dozen kinds of eggplant. Anglo-Saxon-style baking powder is hard to find in Paris, but here it is sold in kilo-size tins. I left with cardamom tea and bottles of curry paste and chutney.

It was getting dark, so I dared not continue on. But I came back, again and again, always in daylight (because I didn’t want to be mugged!). After several visits, the neighborhood became mine. The natives started to call me Columbus madam. It just took several visits! Being entitled is AWESOME! After decades in the neighborhood, many of those residents still can’t say the country is theirs.

Want your eyebrows threaded for only 7 euros? Your hand hennaed? Try the Centre de Beauté Indien. Dass Ponnoussamy, who owns the shop with his wife, Stella, is full of wisdom (full of enlightenment passed down to him by the sages of eyebrow threading), about the area. His father, Antoine, opened the first grocery store nearby more than 40 years ago. The florist Hibiscus Fleurs flies in ropes of fresh jasmine packed in ice from the vast Chennai region. You pin it in your hair and suddenly you exude the sweet smell of fresh jasmine, a purer scent than Chanel No. 5 (but far less expensive, so use it sparingly — or the neighbors will talk).

Noon is the time to witness the midday ceremony at Temple Ganesh, the Hindu Temple on a side street a few blocks north of the main commercial area. Non-Hindus are welcome and no one reading this article could possibly BE Hindu, and picture-taking is allowed. Leave your shoes at the door and buy a basket of coconut, banana and betel leaf for about 8 euros to make a traditional offering. The ceremony, led by a priest naked to the waist (you KNOW what I’m SAYIN’!), fills the room with camphor and incense; chants and prayers; offerings of milk, honey, fruits and flowers. On the day of my visit, I was handed a plate of prasad, warm sweet rice, as a token of appreciation (or a desperate attempt to get me to leave).

Then comes lunch, starting with a lassi made with mango or rose. Southern Indian cooking features dosas (savory rice-and-black-lentil pancakes) and idlis (steamed rice cakes) instead of the naan bread (department of redundancy department, as my high school chem teacher used to say!) of the north. (Where’s the Chettinad chicken? Oh, it’s that sort of South Indian. Sigh. So hungry. The Bong in me is also craving a good Keralan fish curry… along with the momos.) Good vegetarian restaurants can be hard to find in Paris, but the neighborhood has two excellent ones (because DUH, everyone knows Indians are vegetarians!). The most recent one is Saravana Bhavan. Part of an international chain, it leaves even (even!) India-savvy diners with the impression of having just been to Madras (until the bill arrives). At nearby Krishna Bhavan, five of us ate well for 46 euros. (No Woodlands?)

Instead of ordering dessert, stop in at Canabady Snacks. The shop offers both savories (like the spicy chickpea-flour snacks that looks like orange worms) OMG, that phrase is part of the article? not part of someone else’s snark? and brightly colored cakelike desserts. (Holding out for monkey brain fritters on this end, ahem.) They are cloyingly sweet, but that’s part of the experience (oh the compromises one makes for exotic cultures, my carb count just went through the roof!). (If you just want jalebis, you can find them in the Arab or Persian stores. No need to venture out here. Ask for “zalabia” or “zoolbia,” and save on the Métro!) Ask enough questions of the charmingly timid men (so much less scary than those Senegalese and Algerians, I can’t even tell you) (you should see their women!) in the shop and they might pull out folding chairs (in defeat), offer you samples and make you boiling black tea with milk and sugar. (If it’s boiling, you can drink it.) For more on tea in Paris, here’s another Orientalist piece I wrote in these pages!

If you’re in the mood for more, head to the Passage Brady several blocks away. A forlorn, dimly lit covered arcade, its floor tiles are broken and many of its shops and restaurants are empty. (I would think this is more authentic. Dim lighting, forlorn air, broken tiles and all. Flâneur heaven. Just sayin’.) But it offers a piece of history: it was here that the first Indian businesses opened decades ago. Still going strong is Velan, an inviting one-stop shop for foodstuffs, decorative objects, incense, candles, costume jewelry and ayurvedic beauty products.

And in the Joan Miró garden near the Porte d’Italie in the 13th Arrondissement in the south of Paris, off a street called Tagore, there is another surprise: lost in a corner is a bronze bust of the poet and painter himself, pensive as he writes in a notebook. Like me, I am so thoughtful. So thoughtful, I “discovered” all of this.

The U.S. is sending comedy showcase “Make Chai Not War” with performers Rajiv Satyal, Azhar Usman and Hari Kondabolu to India for a seven-city tour starting this week. Spokesperson Victoria Nuland said the tour is part of the State Department’s regular global exchange cultural programs. She offered more information on why the government is supporting the $100,000 tour.

“The reason we decided to support this tour is because, among the things that they are known for is their talk about religious tolerance, about the importance of breaking down prejudices and about the positive experiences they had growing up as Indian-Americans in the United States,” Nuland said.

“In addition to doing shows, they’ll also be holding audience discussions on these issues of religious tolerance, and doing workshops and having some interviews with the press,” Nuland said, adding that the seven city tour costs about US $100,000; of which the US Embassy in New Delhi is supporting them with a grant of US $88,000. (Economic Times)

Satyal, who used his comedic talents while working for Proctor & Gamble, put it a bit differently when it comes to describing what they will talk about on tour.

“It’s a measure of diplomacy and a message of religious harmony,” said Satyal, 35. “We’re not even really religious on stage. We might do some religious jokes, but it’s more just bringing people together.” (Cincinnati Enquirer)

Usman, who co-founded another comedy tour called Allah Made Me Funny, offers an idea of what topics he might talk about on tour.

“I am a believing, practicing Muslim,” Usman says. “This, to me, means that I won’t do sacrilegious, blasphemous, or heretical material. I will however, make fun of human stupidity, narrow-mindedness, and religious fundamentalism.” (Economic Times)

As the token Muslim mutineer, I will attest, my folks also have holiday lights up at their house, I buy candy canes and we even mail out holiday cards. This parody ain’t so far from the truth. Happy holidays, from our mutiny to yours!!

P.S – Continue to boycott, sign petitions and write letters to Lowes – it’s been a week and they still haven’t come up with an acceptable response. And while you are at, boycott the website Kayak.com too for their backhanded apology for pulling their ads off the show. But do support Russel Simmons and all his business ventures for buying ad space when no other corporations were willing to.

In her one-woman show Unladylike: The Pitfalls of Propriety, comedian Radhika Vaz tackles subjects like “proper” female behavior, modern relationships, and the ubiquity of bikini waxes. Having recently returned from touring India, Vaz will be performing Unladylike at the The Producers Club in New York City on Friday, December 9 (more details below). I recently had the chance to ask her a few questions about the show.

What inspired you to write Unladylike?

I had been doing improv for a really long time and then I started writing monologues. I always wanted to do a one-hour show on my own for a few reasons. I was auditioning for parts and wasn’t getting anything. You know, I am practically 40. I am Indian with an Indian accent, I’m not even an Indian with an American accent, so I wasn’t fitting into any of the roles. Writing the show was what really pushed me out there.

Stories about your husband and family often appear in your work. Have any of your relatives ever told you that something was off-limits?

No, they haven’t. I definitely do believe that I have to at least show them the piece before I post it to my blog. Most of my pieces start out on the blog, I usually post it before it is performed.

I remember I posted something once and my husband was like, “You really should have shown me this before you posted.” If it is something related something like alcohol abuse or anything embarrassing, I show it to them. When writing about my friends I change names a lot.

Do you consider Unladylike to be a feminist show?

I hope it is. I am certainly not the first person to talk about these things, but I definitely hope that people look at it that way. To elaborate a little bit, I definitely think that I speak a lot about the wide disparity in the way that men and women are viewed.

You took Unladylike to India this fall. What was that like? Did you have to change the show in any way?

No, I performed the same material I had performed in New York a year ago. A lot of people have asked me if I changed anything before performing in India. I was raised in India, in Bombay, and I moved here when I was 28. A lot of my college friends came to the Bombay show and one of the girls came up to me afterwards and said, “the things that you talked about, they still happen here today.” And that was both funny and a little bit discouraging.

Did anything surprise you about performing the show in India?

I think that with any show of this nature, I was just very relieved I pulled the crowd that I did. Comedy is still very new in India and most of the comedians are men. I wasn’t sure how it would work.

Lastly, you write a lot about female grooming and your routine on bikini waxes in particular seems to have struck a chord with a lot of people. Why do you think that is? And on a scale of 1 to 10, how evil are bikini waxes?

They are at 10, pretty much. They represent everything that’s wrong with the culture. I mean, that’s the last f—ing place, you know? That’s probably why everybody responds to the piece. Look, I get them from time to time, and I have friends who get them all of the time. But it’s in that weird category like plastic surgery, that everyone has to fit in the same box.

Tickets to see Unladylike can be purchased online at www.unladylike.eventbrite.com. Sepia Mutiny readers can enter the discount code MOUSETRAP to receive a $5 discount off of the online price. You can also follow her on Twitter @radvaz, become a fan of her official Facebook page, or check out her official website radvaz.com.

Photo credit: Katarina Kojic Photography and Design.

The MetroPCS Tech & Talk ads are a long-running series (two years in December) featuring desi characters named Ranjit and Chad expounding upon the evils of contracts and benefits of MetroPCS’s phone plans and features. The characters are not a little zany, dressing up in colonial-style wigs to declare wireless independence, playing an intense guitar-riff set off by fireworks and using “Holy shishkabob!” as a catch-phrase, to give a few examples.

As I noticed in retweets about the ads posted by the characters @ranjitmetropcs and @chadmetropcs, some people found the ads hilarious, declared themselves fans of the duo, and wanted to dress up like them for Halloween. Others writing for business and tech sites found the ads cringe-worthy, racist and/or in poor taste.

Personally, I found a recent ad in which the desi duo persuade the T-Mobile lady to leave T-Mobile and join up with them funny for it’s mascot-stealing premise, and I like the wacky style of the two actors who play Ranjit and Chad. But what do you think of the ads? And what do comments like these ones retweeted by @RanjitMetroPCS –e.g., “The Indian guys in the metropcs commercials make me laugh but itd be funnier if they were in a quicky mart” and “#lmao when the Indian maid with her accent asks me to fix her phone and she has metro pcs”–suggest in terms of what other viewers find funny?

I reached out to the actors who portray Ranjit and Chad—Anjul Nigam and Sid Veda—to find out more about the ads and what they think. Some of their responses are posted below. In addition to the questions seen below, I asked them about the audition process and whether the ads have helped them get work. Read their complete responses to learn about those topics.

What kind of work do you do outside of the MetroPCS ads?

Anjul Nigam: I’m fortunate and blessed to have been making a living as an actor based out of Los Angeles for over seventeen years now. Much of my work is in television, including a recurring on “Grey’s Anatomy” (as Psych “Dr. Raj”) and on JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE! (as the lead in the quartet of “Indian Call Center Guys”).

Beyond my work as an actor, I am a founding partner at Brittany House Pictures, where we have several projects in various stages of development.

Sid Veda: Outside of the MetroPCS ads, as well as the rest of Hollywood, I work in support for a Financial Software company in NYC. I help I-Bankers structure municipal bond deals with a program called DBC Finance. In 2010, every vacation day I took was a break from tech support to pretend to be a tech/phone supporter for MetroPCS and “Outsourced.” My life has a theme, apparently.

What’s your favorite one so far?

Anjul Nigam: So far, my favorite spot for the “Tech & Talk” ads is “Solo.” I loved shooting this one because we got a chance to really let loose in it, and it’s not too often I get to be an air-guitar rock star!

Sid Veda: That’s tough… some of the more popular ones (“Solo,” “Spicy News,” and a couple others) were rather painful to shoot for me. It’s not like I have memory-pains or recurring bruises or anything, but I think I prefer the one with the Mongoose. I got a good rolling “rrrrrr” whilst petting that thing.

In a Buzzine Bollywood interview one of the ad’s writers, Kiran Koshy, says Ranjit and Chad are based on real people. What direction did you get for portraying Ranjit/Chad and how did you develop the character’s accent and zany qualities? Is Chad a nickname or short for anything?

Anjul Nigam: By real people, I believe Kiran means the characters are based on the saturation of H-1 visa holders from India in Silicon Valley. They are super intelligent, technology enthusiasts and often have heavy accents based on having been raised in India. Sometimes their sense of style is a little dated or even middle-aged, which they in fact are. I was born in India myself, and although I was raised in the US, my household was quite traditionally Indian. In fact, I grew up speaking in Hindi with my parents at home, so the Indian accent has always been easily accessible for me. Probably the most important direction we receive regarding the characters is to really enjoy ourselves… these guys love what they do (host a talk show where they get to talk about technology!) and they’re at the top of their game.

Sid Veda: Interestingly, Chad’s accent, if not his entire person, is based on a South Indian and Kiran has worked hard with me to nail the hint of dialect/accent he had in mind. He and Jason, the other writer, are extremely helpful in communicating goals and message. As for the zaniness, much of that comes from the deep recesses of the director, Jim Hosking’s mind.  For some of the more challenging spots to shoot, I would be trying to follow direction or suggestions as they’re being shouted out thinking “why the why do we have to shoot a bunch of noise that will never make air?!?” When I see the finished product for the first time, I am always like “OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHH… that’s why he wanted me to lick the amplifier!”  I am happy to take so much of the credit that Jim actually deserves for Chad’s dancing skills.

And yes, just like Sid is short for Sridhar, Chad is short for something. That’s all you need to know at this time.

I’ve noticed different reactions to the ads, including people variously finding them 1) light-hearted and hilarious, 2) unfunny racist stereotypes, and/or 3) politically-charged ironic sendups of ethnic caricatures. What’s your take on the ads? Given these responses, do you have any regrets about working in them?

Anjul Nigam: I have absolutely no regrets about working on the campaign. On the one hand, humor is subjective, so if someone finds the ads unfunny, then I know it’s not the kind of humor that person responds to. For example, I’m not a fan of toilet humor, and am usually turned off by content that contains it; but I’m not judgmental of it.

Meanwhile, I find the negative response is often misplaced. Perhaps, sometimes people have a knee-jerk reaction to things they believe are caricatures, but it’s important to remember that every stereotype is based on a certain reality. Personally, I have known many Indians who are very much like Ranjit and Chad, their accents, style, energy, etc. And yet still, beyond that, for me an accent is merely an extension of a character’s wardrobe. I don’t ever hear anyone finding Hugh Jackson’s Australian accent denigrating. It’s all a matter of perception.

With regard to racism, it’s worth taking a look the cultural immersion of other ethnicities, each which have their own set of challenges and advantages. For example, twenty years after the Civil Rights era, African American filmmaker Robert Townsend made a movie called HOLLYWOOD SHUFFLE, which satirized the racial stereotypes of African Americans in film and television. A significant portion of the black population in America had achieved a certain position in American society, and it was being depicted in content like “The Cosby Show.” Townsend’s film was a no holds barred depiction that Townsend was able to make through humor.

In the same light, Indians are now one of the most successful minorities in the US, a group that continues to have an increasingly greater presence in the forefront of technology, business and media. If we are not in a place to have fun with ourselves, I don’t know who is.

Sid Veda: No regrets whatsoever! We made two silly characters to pitch a terrific telecomm deal; we are not making a statement about 1 billion Indians. The fact that Ranjit and Chad were born to pitch the most cost-effective deal in celluworld (by far) is a blessing.

And seriously… having worked in tech support since 2000 (as well as in telemarketing for Stanley Steemer in college), how offended should I be by the stereotype?

Read the complete interview to learn more about their experiences with the auditions and how the ads affected their ability to get work.