Vendors Warm Up to Hybrid Wedding Scene

The business of tying the knot.

How do you keep a ballroom’s fire sprinkler system from disrupting a wedding when the ceremony features a sacred fire (and the electric havan is presumably not an option)? Foxchase Manor manager Antonio Cecchi, whose staff assists with an average of 80 South Asian weddings a year, has perfected a technique. “The key is to keep the fire in a portable container, and then when you’re done, you carry it outside and close all the doors before blowing it out.”

The Washington Post’s “Two Cultures, Slowly Uniting In Matrimony” explores how, like Cecchi, photographers, dress designers and horse handlers have responded to the “rise of a hybrid wedding scene.” The story suggests that attempts to accommodate go in both directions, and have mixed results. Read the rest of this entry »

Cultural Connect’s Sumaya Kazi on CNN

Lapin and Kazi on Larry King’s set. (Courtesy CNN PR, Sumaya Kazi)

Young People Who Rock, CNN’s weekly interview series hosted by Nicole Lapin and focused on people under 30 recently interviewed Sumaya Kazi of The Cultural Connect, a media publishing company with a series of online magazines spotlighting young minority professionals. Watch the CNN Live Video interview.

Kazi took a few questions from Lapin, and if we didn’t hear it from Kazi herself—“Don’t laugh! it’s my first ever on-camera interview!”—we wouldn’t have guessed that this appearance marks her TV debut. Lapin, on the other hand, struck me as a tiny bit awkward, dropping the “Asian” from “Southeast Asian” (or perhaps she meant “South/East Asian”), resulting in the phrases “Southeast Trinity” and “Southeast background,” the latter referring to Kazi’s background. Maybe words like South Asian or South Asian American don’t exactly roll off the tongues of every news anchor. Or perhaps Lapin was nervous about interviewing someone who has been running with the new CNN show’s basic premise for two years now over at The Cultural Connect!

Previously: “Business Week Names Kazi to Top 25 Under 25″

Laughing Liberally With Hari Kondabolu

Monthly political comedy showcase Laughing Liberally Local 415 hosts two comics tonight, July 16, 8pm, at San Francisco’s Make-Out Room. Seattle-based Hari Kondabolu (Jimmy Kimmel Live, HBO US Comedy Arts Festival) and nationally touring Marga Gomez (“Los Big Names”, “The Twelve Days of Cochina”) are headlining.

The Daily noted Kondabolu’s appearance on the Jimmy Kimmel show earlier this year, but I didn’t see the Kimmel clip until this morning. I can sympathize with the Microsoft Word glitch he describes (or I could before I had the uncomfortable experience of “Ignore All”-ing my name, and then later taking the more palatable step of “Add”-ing it)!

This spring, Kondabolu appeared together with musician/comic Ahamefule Oluo in a video podcast on race comedy for the April issue of multicultural Seattle magazine NW Colors. Kondabolu believes that “comedy can be used to address racism by actually pointing out racism.”

“A big part of my comedy is taking really big subjects and really big ideas and finding ways to express them, finding simple ways to explain complicated things.” He started writing and performing stand-up when he was in high school and ran for vice president in high school to create a comedy night. “All my early jokes were basically old Chris Rock and Margaret Cho jokes with ‘Indian’ in it.” Read the rest of this entry »

A Horatio Alger Tale (But Crank Up the Pearls and Rip Off the Knob)

It’s not Christmas yet, but James Kurisunkal, erstwhile incognito Oz behind Park Avenue Peerage and one-time Nirali interviewee, appears to have been extra good this year. The same publication that drew back the seersucker curtains from his lair now moves to install him on staff: he will be interning at New York magazine in the fall. [via Gawker]

Angelina’s Mighty Heart

Jolie in Marie Claire (PopSugar)

I caught the Angelina interview in the current issue of Marie Claire and loved the photography of her in the lengha skirt. (And the color of the skirt, itself! What is it with me and pink lately?)

In the article, Jolie opens up about all of her children’s personalities … According to her, Pax is still learning that underwear and pants are not the same thing, Zahara knows how to get what she wants, Shiloh is just learning to walk and Maddox is really bonding with his father.

She also talks about preparing for her role in A Mighty Heart, the story of the Daniel Pearl tragedy. The movie, produced by Brad Pitt, was filmed in India and boasts tons of South Asians in the cast including Archie Panjabi and Irrfan Khan.

Of the intensity on set while filming the scene of the revelation of Daniel’s murder, she says:

A Mighty Heart opens in theaters nationwide on June 22.

“No Bingo!” Narkar

Move over Donald “You’re Fired!” Trump, and make way for the Commissioner.

Providing ABC’s newest game show with what might be the next catch phrase to sweep the nation, Sunil Narkar is National Bingo Night‘s black-and-white clad co-host and bingo official. Commissioner Sunil verifies winners from the studio audience, with his trademark flourish. Fortunately for those who haven’t tuned in yet for the chance to win prizes like a patio furniture set or a motorcycle ride with Erik Estrada, the Internets are brimming with clips of the Comish, and the most recent NBN episode is online.

A YouTube tribute to the announcer showcases his signature style in action. Fans on the net find him “adorable” if “corny” and think he’s “the best part of” the show. Variety hails him as the show’s “one real breakthrough.” Prior to his stint on NBN, Narkar has worked in Los Angeles promoting Marathi language and theater since 1990.

His TV face-time also includes commercials, starting with one for Chase Card on Spanish TV. “I play a Mexican who uses his credit card to duplicate a key. There are thousands of Mexicans who auditioned, and it was an Indian who got selected. Now, I am noticed by every Mexican on American streets,” he told ExpressIndia.com. He went on to star in a Butterfinger spoof set in a Bangalore call center.

When he’s not busy with bingo, Narkar is involved with carrom, the “ultimate board game,” and has served as a nationals organizer for the United States Carrom Association.

South Asian Student in Glamour Top 10

When I was a high school sophomore, I was stressing about SATs and competing in high school debate. Meghan Pasricha? She was getting laws passed.

Pasricha poses for Glamour.

The Delaware Clean Indoor Air Act, which bans smoking indoors, was a result of the young Delaware native’s efforts. An asthma sufferer, Pasricha struggled to breathe in smoke-filled rooms—so she began speaking at public hearings, founded the Anti-Tobacco Action Club with a grant from the American Lung Association and mobilized 2,000 students to help get the law passed.

Now, the 21-year-old Harvard psychology major has just been named one of Glamour magazine’s “Top 10 College Women 2007.” Since high school, she’s continued her crusade for easy breathing and volunteerism in general, founding Global Youth H.E.L.P. (Health, Education, and Leadership Program). Glamour describes the organization as promoting “youth leadership in the United States and abroad. To date, they’ve taught leadership skills to teen girls in Delaware’s foster care system, provided scholarships for schoolchildren in India and organized students at Harvard for an annual anti-smoking ‘Kick Butts Day’.”

Pasricha has some solid advice for other high school and college students: “Everyone tells young people they can be the leaders of tomorrow,” she tells Glamour, “but they can also be the leaders of today.”

Stuff Gets Stupid(er)

See a larger image here.

Stuff magazine, not exactly known for its highbrow content, may have crossed a line in its continual quest to whet the prurient appetites of its readership. Alongside a June 2007 quiz entitled “Yoga Pose, Drink or Sex Position?” wherein readers have to decide in which category names like “downward facing dog” and “reverse cowgirl” belong, an illustration labeled “Vice” depicts Hindu deities overindulging in alcohol and having sex.

For me the cartoon is troubling on a number of different levels. Although I support the magazine’s freedom of expression, as a practicing Hindu, I find those images deeply offensive. Also profoundly irritating to me is the obvious ignorance at issue here. While Indian culture today is rather prudish, ancient Hinduism acknowledged and even celebrated sexuality—witness the worship of the obviously phallic Shiva lingam, or the erotic carvings at Khajuraho. But instead of playing on those readily available themes, the artist chose instead to draw Hanuman, noted for his celibacy, having sex.
Read the rest of this entry »

Born In The U.S.A.A.

Anthony, De La Cruz, D’Lo (APICC)

Running through May and June in San Francisco, the 10th Annual United States of Asian America Festival showcases over 75 Asian Pacific Islander artists in the the fields of dance, music, visual art, theater and multidisciplinary performance. The festival’s diverse program includes a May 26 show by the Spotlight Stealerz, an LA-based performing troupe comprised of writers Adelina Anthony (“Mastering Sex and Tortillas”), D’Lo (“Ballin’ With My Bois”) and Alison De La Cruz (“Sungka”). The Stealerz use comedy to “weave individual stories and group sketches together to explore a range of issues within their multiple experiences, identities and communities (Xicana, Tamil Sri-Lankan, Filipino, lesbian, queer, stud, immigrant, mixed-race).”

You can see more of Spotlight Stealer D’Lo, a Tamil Sri Lankan-American performer, writer and music producer with a background in piano, ethnomusicology, hip-hop, dance and more, at upcoming shows across the country, including “Ramble-ations: A One D’Lo Show”—an attempt at fusing together elements of her being on stage: “Gay Hindu Hip Hop—These three things make me but don’t allow for one another.”

More:
Watch “D’Lo Speaks the Good Word” on MTV Desi and Alison De La Cruz perform at Serafemme 2006.

Joya Speaks To The World

Joya at UCLA (Photo: Lluvia Gamez)

I wish I could say that I first heard about Malalai Joya, the bravest, youngest and first female member of Afghanistan’s parliament in the course of keeping up with international news or listening to current events on the radio, but the truth is she was the footnote in a coffee klatch-style video book club interview with Khaled Hosseini that I clicked through to from a Borders bookstore mass email. Over bundt cake in the kitchen with adoring fans of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, Hosseini gave props to Joya for speaking out about crimes against girls and women in Afghanistan.

Her colleagues in the Afghan parliament do not share his admiration for her outspokenness. Earlier this week, they voted to suspend her for criticizing them in violation of article 70, a procedural rule that has not been enforced against other members despite their regular criticism of each other. What did she say? BBC reports: “A stable is better, for there you have a donkey that carries a load and a cow that provides milk.” “The parliament is worse than a stable.” Human Rights Watch is calling for her reinstatement.

Joya, 28, famously spoke out in 2003, when as an elected delegate to Afghanistan’s constitutional convention, she objected to the domination of the proceedings by mujahideen. “Why have you again selected as committee chairmen those criminals who have brought these disasters for Afghan people?” Read the rest of this entry »