I think the promo is witty and gorgeous. I’ve been trying to find out who and where it was made, but came up empty. I did find the following.

Amex has been trying to lure Mr. O’Brien into appearing in a commercial since the company sponsored his comedy tour earlier this year. Several weeks ago, Mr. O’Brien said he was finally convinced by a funny script created by WPP PLC’s Ogilvy & Mather, as well as American Express’s past ads.

Playing on Mr. O’Brien’s obsession for detail, the new ad shows the comedian taking a trip to India to search for the finest materials to make curtains for his new show. Mr. O’Brien is seen using a loom to weave the fabric; stomping on flower petals to make the dye and having a gossip session with the local washing ladies as he dyes the material.

A person familiar with the matter said AmEx paid Mr. O’Brien more than $1 million to do the commercial. [wsj]

Conan is making his return to television, only this time it’s on TBS at the 11pm time slot. The show is called, “Conan” and his return begins tonight, November 8th.

I mean… did you see when he….. how did he….. what the heck……? Did that hurt???

Mallakhamb was introduced as a supporting exercise for wrestlers. “Pole mallakhamb” was started by Balambhattdada Deodhar sometime between 1800 and 1810. The mallakhamb pole used in competitions is a straight pole made of teak or sheesham wood, standing 2.6 metres (8.5 ft) in height with a circumference of 55 centimetres (22 in) at the base. [wiki]

Pole dancers in the West could learn a move or two from these Mallakhamb acrobats. I’m just saying.

Lola Kutty, the bespectacled woman in the front, is a VJ on Channel [V] and the alter ego to Anuradha Menon. Ultrabrown linked to some kitschy posters of Lola Kutty back in ’07. I’m surprised I hadn’t heard of Lola sooner. Then again, maybe there’s a little part of Lola Kutty that exists within all of us and I’ve always known her.

Lola Kutty is a bespectacled Keralite lady who speaks English with a heavy Malayali accent. Unlike other VJs, she has curly oily hair sporting a gajra and wears silk saris. Unlike Jassi of Jassi Jaissi Koi Nahin, Lola has no plans for a makeover[3]. She is a huge fan of Abhishek Bachchan[9]. Her assistant is Shiny Alex, who wears fluorescent shirts, matching slippers, and mundu folded up. [wiki]

And of course, Boney M needs no introduction. Right? Riiiight?

I also love the irony that the video is lip synced by Lola Kutty’s posse when Boney M. was a lip syncing cover band from the 1970s. Enjoy.

I became a little more surprised when I noticed that some of my friends had changed their profiles more than once a day and that each update was accompanied by either accolades or criticism. Despite reading, “that totally looks like you!” a few times, I didn’t immediately figure out that this was [a meme](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme_(Internet) or a game, and that people were doing this to participate in some greater movement until one of you spelled it out, in the comments section under your newly-changed picture. Don’t blame me, unlike you MIT-alums or Ivy Leaguers, I went to a state school. Suck it, with your superior deductive skills. At least I figured out the “bra color in FB status” thing without googling it. Go me!

Obviously, I’m not writing this to tell you about a “hot, new trend!”. I’d be more than two weeks late for THAT. I’m writing because I noticed something very interesting occurring in my feed, and many of you are responsible for that. It started simply enough, with this:

“I’d participate, but there are no Hollywood celebrities who look like me. (“

And with that, so much was conjured. Memories of being at Disneyland or airport souvenir shops, standing next to my sister as I excitedly snatched a license plate or key chain emblazoned with, “A N N A”…while she glumly turned the display to “V”, where there was nothing which read “Veena”.

“Is someone feeling left out because they are Brown?”, I wondered. “Because THAT’S a post!”. I had no idea how much of a post it could be until my own Facebook profile became a hotbed of discussion about why people were participating, what it meant to participate, as well as questions of representation, inclusion and “[passing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passing_(racial_identity)”. The original point of the game may have been to simply change your profile pic to that of a celebrity whom you allegedly resemble, but I sensed that there was more here than a mere meme.A smattering of relevant comments:

“I’ve noticed that most of my friends of South Asian descent have changed theirs to Kal Penn when they don’t resemble him in the least… “all look same” syndrome, perhaps? “

“A number of the South Asian women posting doppelgangers apparently think they look like Priyanka Chopra.”

“I’m only half-brown, and I hate that my doppelganger is white. I feel like I’m insulting my Dad with that picture. I’m not just white, even if I look it. I’m Indian, too!”

“I don’t look like Apu or that girl from the “Office”, so I guess I can’t play. Bummer.”

“lnitially I’d posted mine as Disney’s Jasmine (but) I’ve got Sridevi posted right now…sadly many of my non-desi friends haven’t noticed that it isn’t me. I guess we all look alike… ”

And then this, from someone who is usually mistaken for African-American, Dominican or anything but Desi, who decided not to participate in all the wackiness:

“The only time in recent memory I felt South Asian was after 9/11 and at Russell Peters’ recent show in DC when he made a joke about my nose as the dead giveaway that I was Indian.”

More, from Mutineers who opted out:

“I haven’t had a moment to figure out which Bolly-celeb I look like. (I didn’t even consider finding a mainstream/Hollywood celeb.)”

“I know I do not resemble anyone in the small group of desi celebs familiar to most Americans (e.g. Mindy Kaling, Padma Lakshmi, etc.). I couldn’t instantly think of a Latina/Persian/Arab/other brown-skinned celeb familiar to most Americans that I might resemble. (This is a small pool too! How many can you think of? The Kardashians don’t count ! Therefore, the number of potential possibilities seemed much larger in celebs more famous in South Asia than in the US. “

“Racially ambiguous looking, that’s my excuse. My growing list of what people think I am: Latina (but depending on my shade at the time anything from Argentine to Mexican), Native American, Filipina, Mongolian, Greek, Spanish, Italian, Turk, Arab, Chinese… “

All of this because of a Facebook meme? Wow. And I didn’t even include the people who emailed me privately to bemoan how this silly game made them feel like losers because they don’t look like ANY celebrity, from either Bollywood OR Hollywood, and yes, they know it’s a teeny, tiny problem to have, so there’s no need to judge them for their dismay, because they feel lame enough. Whatever, Desis. Once again, many of us were on the outside, looking in. Hello, fifth grade. Right? And ironically, it was a BROWN PERSON named Bob Patel who came up with the whole damned thing (thanks Disgrasian and Nayantara)! We were doing this to ourselves.

With all of this consternation, you’d think we’d avoid this meme as if it were H1N1. Not. Even. Close. Someone I met almost twenty years ago wrote to me to say that she had proudly changed her picture to one of Preity Zinta’s. Why?

It seems like fun and it was simple enough so why not. I picked someone based on whom I’ve been told I look like by others…otherwise I wouldn’t know where to start! It’s interesting to see who people are coming up with (for their own). At first I don’t see the resemblance but slowly you get to see a small glimpse. I guess I’m hoping that people agree with my choice!

Another Mutineer volunteered why she had participated: it required no extra effort. Apparently LiveJournal had been infected with a “Who would star in the movie of your life?”-meme before Facebook became a sea of celebrity. For this frequent commenter, it was easy to shift her “star” to her “doppelganger”. It didn’t hurt that her doppelganger was a point of pride, someone with whom she identified, a woman she genuinely liked.

Until I found this image, I hadn’t found anyone desi that looks like me. I’ve a bit of a nose, and I’ve danced. While I’m by no means a breakdancer or street (hah!), I feel that this image captures me perfectly: posed, poised, colorful.

I asked her if it mattered that the woman was Brown?

It definitely matters…because growing up in the hinterland of the USofA, there weren’t any good contemporary brown iconic images, other than from the desh. And those were mostly Bollywood, and completely disconnected from my reality…

She went on to say that she probably wouldn’t have participated in this strange little FB game, unless her doppelganger were Brown. I don’t blame her. I’ll confess to feeling the same way. I’ve been told that I resemble various people, throughout my life. My extra-pointy chin reminds people of Reese Witherspoon, but her pale skin, blonde hair and bright blue eyes have nothing in common with my brown, brown and brown…everything.

Aside from her, I often got compared to Princess Jasmine from Disney, mostly because of the waist-length hair, large eyes…and well, whatever else. I saw “Aladdin” when I was 17, and immediately after, the toddlers in front of me in the movie theater all turned around to stare and point, “She’s Jathmine!”. I know, I know…I recognize that THAT occurred half a lifetime ago, when I was in my teens, so I tried to think of something more recent. Hmmm.

Well, I occasionally have someone tell me that I look like “those girls from ‘Sister, Sister’”, so when I first realized what was transpiring on Facebook, I thought about changing my picture to one of either Tamera or Tia Mowry OR Princess Jasmine. I was reluctant to do so, and I immediately felt ashamed. PJ was a cartoon, what was my excuse for the other two? Was it because they were “African-American”? I called myself out. I’ve been surrounded by stupid “White is right”-prejudice my whole life; was I secretly in agreement? Was it worth even playing along, if it inspired all of this angst?

It was, if it meant keeping myself honest and hyper-aware of the bullshit with which we are conditioned. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve been told, “If only you weren’t so dark…you’d be so pretty.” Eeew. If I was really honest with myself, the truth is, I’ve had people compare me to a different celebrity two to three times more often than I get the Mowrys or anyone else.

That’s why I ended up updating my Facebook profile with her image (even if my “white” friends and sorority sisters had no clue who she was), because merely based on the numbers, it seemed like the right choice to make if I were actually going to play along. Who was my “doppelganger”? I am chagrined and ashamed enough to admit that I compared myself to the luminous Hema Malini, but in my pathetic defense, there is no celebrity I’ve evoked more comparisons to, more often, for my entire adult life. Maybe to Northies, all South Indians look the same.

Even with all that empirical data, my choice left me feeling guilty. Hema was pasty, y’all. Was I secretly wishing I were paler, even as I scolded my little sister–who is currently in Kerala– for believing what my cousins told her: that “Fair and Lovely” was merely sunblock? I hoped not. And so, my compromise was to create a collage. Three pics of Hema and one photograph of me. You decide. I couldn’t take this anymore. All of this navel-gazing and reflection was exhausting, if you were Brown. My paler friends hadn’t spent anywhere near as much time worrying about what their choices might signal; conversely, they weren’t gifted with treats like “You ain’t THAT light” in their comment feeds. Ah, white privilege. Will your power know no end?

No matter. Facebook has already moved on to a new meme. See, now you’re supposed to look up your first name on Urban Dictionary and post the first user-submitted “definition” as a comment under the status which proclaims that you are participating in such shenanigans. What’s that you say? Your very South Asian name has a horrid, racist definition, which mentions tech support, which contrasts uglily with all the other, far more benign results like, “The name for the most awesome person ever, It is impossible to fit so much awesome into any other person.” Hmmm, I smell another post…

…the latest digital fad — a chain-letter-cum-literary exercise called “25 Random Things About Me” — is threatening to consume what little remaining free time and privacy we have.

Here’s how it works: friends send you an e-mail message (or, on Facebook, “tag” you in a note posted to their profile) with 25 heartfelt observations about themselves — like “I named my son after a man I’ve never met” or “I once paid good money to see Whitesnake in concert” — along with instructions for you to follow suit. You are then expected to gin up your own clever list and foist it upon 25 people, including the friend who asked for it in the first place. [NYT]

The 25 things can be habits, goals, quirky facts– whatever. Everyone on Facebook seemed to be doing it, so much so that a backlash started. People used their status messages to denounce the meme and warn others from including them. Groups like “Stop Tagging Me in 25 Random Things Posts You Tards” were formed. But the lists weren’t really THAT bad. No one was forcing anyone to read them. Often, if you did, you’d end up learning fascinating things about the people whom you allegedly “know”.

That’s the thing about “25 Random Things About Me”: Once you stop being annoyed you realize that, at its best, it’s one of the more compelling — and, yes, even oddly inspiring — wastes of time to hit the Web in years. And let’s cut to the chase. Should we really be complaining about the inanity of this new trend? We’re a nation entertained by lolcats. [salon]

Word. Besides, it’s not like this is anything new:

“It’s a brainstorming exercise,” said Anne Trubek, an associate professor at Oberlin College who said she used to give nearly identical assignments 15 years ago to beginning writing students. “It’s used to get people to think about ideas without the pressure of developing a thesis or an argument.” [NYT]

Reading this made me realize that I should write such a list…

So these notes aren’t only informative and entertaining, but they also build community. In a real way, they’re the literature of democracy. [ChicagoTribune]

…but with a twist. I wanted to write about this blog. We have so many new readers, many of whom weren’t around for certain conversations or milestones. What better way to strengthen the bonds of this mutinous community than by telling you a little about how and why we’re here? I don’t think there’s anything else quite like SM out there…and that’s why it was easy to come up with 25 “random” things.

I probably could have come up with a few more (like…#26. Some Hindus think we are a pro-Muslim blog and some Muslims condemn us for being a hotbed of Hinduism. How we are both is beyond me), but this is enough for a Friday. Without further ado…

::

1) Sepia Mutiny is a pun on the Sepoy Mutiny, India’s First War of Independence. It’s shocking how many people don’t make the connection. Even if you didn’t puzzle it out, it’s part of our FAQ!

2) Therefore Sepia Mutiny loosely translates to brown uprising or revolt. Still unclear? Remember sepia-tinted photographs? They’re brown. There you go.

3) It’s pronounced SEE-Pee-Uh. Not SEP-ee-uh. See. Like Free.

4) I’m the one who came up with the name. Painfully earnest emails were traded back and forth, with ballots, rankings, and passionate arguments for or against the 15 names we were considering, until I blurted out, “How ’bout Sepia Mutiny? Like brown mutiny. It’s weird and thus, no one else has it and it’s a pun. Also, it means we can stop voting and start blogging.” So, SM was lucky #16. (This one’s for you, rogue).

5) We were this close to being called “Indian Ink”, which would’ve decisively pre-empted all the annoying, anti-South Asian bullshit we’ve had to deal with over the years. I don’t think that name is as special, inclusive or original as what we decided upon. And I’d feel that way even if Vinod was the Mallu in the bunker who came up with SM.

6) SM was Abhi’s vision. Abhi, Manish, Vinod and I were all aware of each other’s personal blogs. We had each blog-rolled the others, etc. In 2004, Manish and I had posted about two different incidents involving Republican campaigns, which deserved to be called out. Abhi realized it would be far more effective if these stories were in one place, because even though there was some overlap in our readership, our Desi peers were still missing out. And these issues were too important to go unnoticed, during an election year. (There you go, Rahul G.)

7) The fabulous five founders are the four I named above, plus that enigma wrapped in a riddle and dipped in chocolate, Ennis. Ennis was one of my favorite readers and an old friend of Manish and Vinod’s, so he was a natural addition.

After “Indian Ink”, “blogwalla” and “Amar Akbar Anthony” were tied for second place in the great name race.

9) The first post on this blog is an impromptu limerick I wrote on July 30, 2004, when Manish asked each of us to publish our own test posts to make sure our logins worked, etc. I never expected it to live longer than a few hours. It means the world to me that he/we didn’t remove it.

10) Our first “real” or official post was published a week later, on August 7, by Manish. It consists of just one sentence. Obviously, much has changed. We were figuring ourselves out as we went along.

11) As far as I can tell, our first meetup was hosted by Vinod on July 7, 2005 in NYC.

11a) Yes, people have hooked up at meetups. I’ve accidentally walked in on it.

11b) Cheee, cheee you dirty monkeys!

12) SM does not endorse anyone. We are not a partisan blog. We are not all Democrats and it’s annoying when people assume we are and then get mad at us for being our diverse, independent selves.

13) As far as I know, we’ve had meetups in Manhattan, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, Brooklyn, Washington, D.C., Toronto, Philadelphia and London (thanks, rudie_c!). If any of that is wrong, I know I’ll get corrected, asap.

14) Trolls have showed up to meetups twice, both in DC. Once, they actually joined us, but refused to introduce themselves or otherwise provide any identifying info, saying that if he did, we’d probably throw him out/beat him up. He just sat there and listened while the rest of us had a rollicking conversation. Awkward. The other time, the troll apparently sat nearby, with a friend and scoped us out– we had no idea they were at Amma. I know this because this troll later made peace with me (strange, but true…it’s happened three times), and they told me about it.

15) We have never had ads and I hope we never will. I love NPR for a reason. I hate blinking things, gyrating cartoons, pop-ups, pop-unders and everything else which assaults my eyes online. I want SM to be an oasis from that crap. Besides, can you just imagine the text ads on the side? “Bharatmatrimony.com, DesiZingles.com, Shaadi.com”…uh, do you really want to see that shit? I don’t.

16) One of the reasons I’m against ads is because I don’t want us to ever feel constrained by or otherwise affected by them. We don’t shill, I hope we never will.

17) When we need money for server costs, we just ask you. You’ve always given us more than we needed, in a matter of days, if not hours. We are so grateful for your support. Everything else is done by volunteers, i.e. site maintenance, design, and yes, blogging and moderating.

18) If you’re sick of me mentioning that, you might be one of the ingrates who complains about something you don’t pay for, which others create as a labor of love. One of the more depressing aspects of this project is the level of entitlement some display with regards to it. We do our best and we still get complaints for not covering X, not moderating Y, not having a better Z, etc. Sigh. This is not our day job. We are not a newspaper or a for-profit organization.

19) Believe it or not, we don’t ban THAT many people. Nor do we ban or delete you if we dislike you personally, you’ve insulted our writing, dared to disagree with us, etc. It’s unfortunate that some choose to level such petty, inaccurate accusations.

19a) If your shit got deleted, either you violated our commenting policy, were off-topic or you were an asshole (or all of the above).

19b) If you got banned, you probably called Vinod “Uncle Tom”. Don’t do that. Not because he’s a mutineer, but because he’s human. It’s nasty, uncalled for and offensive. If you can’t disagree with someone without resorting to that slur, do us all a favor and don’t comment.

20) The post with the most comments of all time is called, “Whoa, is Dating White not Right?”. I stopped counting somewhere around 1,500 mostly because my computer refuses to even load the page. Those 1,500ish comments were added over a mere four days, btw. I wrote an obituary post for “WIDWNR” and even that got 300 comments! You guys love to discuss interracial dating!

21) SepiaDestiny.com is an inside joke– three years ago, one of you asked if we’d start a dating site. That’s the name of it.

22) The other names we considered: Desirati, Dishoom Dishoom, XDesi, BrownAmerica, Desispiracy, PanDesi, Tamarind, Desinfect, Desified, Shotgun Rishta, Desintegrate, Blogging While Brown.

23) Pardesi Gori is the name of an infamous troll who always gets banned but keeps coming back for more. She switches handles (“Mistress of Spices” was another, I think) but we can always figure out who she is by her consistent “tells”. She’s very critical of India, she mentions she’s White but doesn’t date white guys, she tries to out-Brown brown people, etc. If someone accuses you of being her, it’s just because they’re still traumatized by her antics. Forgive them.

24) Razib was not our first commenter (that was someone anonymous), but he has been here the longest. He left his first comment when we were just three days old.

25) There is no real structure to SM. Never has been. No meetings, no deadlines, no story assignments, nothing. We just write about what moves us, if we can add something to the issue and if we have time. We each moderate our own posts for the most part, so sometimes this means that we’ll be tempted to write about something juicy, but if we can’t devote the resources to managing a chaotic comment thread…we might pass.

::

What about you? If you did the “25 Things” meme and want to share your “top 3″ in the comments below, feel free. Or leave us a link to where we can find your list, online. I’d love to know which one of you has made out with a famous rapper. Oh wait, that I already know.