Shaheen’s Tune In Top Ten

Update on “Shaheen a STAR Candidate”—Shaheen Sheik’s song “Wildflower World” beat out over 400 contestants this past week to make it into the top ten round of a contest held by mainstream Los Angeles radio station 98.7 STAR. Listeners can show their support for Sheik and her song by participating in the final round of online voting now through September 26. The final vote will decide the Star Lounge featured song and artist who will also get to perform live on the radio.

Previous Star Lounge artists include Dave Matthews, Alanis Morrisette, Coldplay and Norah Jones. The top ten round this year includes the following artists in addition to Shaheen Sheik: Ken Oak Band, Adrina Thorpe, Jordyn Taylor, Joseph Vincent, Lady Danville, Jeff Stauning, Waiting 4 Wyatt, Larissa Lam and Michael Celedon.

More: The video for “Wildflower World” is up now on Shaheen’s site.

Now featuring more ghungroo: Video for “Here and Now”

Update: The pop folk acoustic trio Lady Danville—Michael Garner, Dan Chang, and Matt Frankel—won the competition with their single “Tired Magician.”

Nose Stud = No Job

Lalji, wearing teeny tiny nose stud.

Heathrow aiport caterers Eurest UK fired Amrit Lalji, 40, of Stanmore, north-west London, who worked in an airport VIP arrivals lounge, for failing to remove her nose jewelry (BBC). She wore the stud for more than a year before a manager told her to remove it.

Eurest’s official statement includes the following information on the hazards of mixing nath and naan: “Jewellery can harbour bacteria, create a hazard when working with machinery and find its way into the food people eat.” Lalji’s temple, union, and the mayor of London have spoken out against the employer’s decision to dismiss her.

The Stanmore Swaminarayan temple and the Hindu Council UK find the firing unjust and the temple has given “a letter to Amrit, quoting Hindu religious scriptures in order to prove that wearing a nose stud is part of Hindu faith.” Lalji, who came to the UK from Kenya, says “My family is originally from Kutch, Gujarat. As a Hindu, I have imbibed the tradition of wearing the shringar of a married woman from my mother.” (The Pioneer)

Union official Tahir Bhatti states that “this is not a fair way to proceed and must be reversed and dress codes introduced which deal with all religious matters.” (“GMB Member At Heathrow Sacked For Refusing To Remove Religious Nose Pin”) London Mayor Ken Livingstone has described the dismissal as an attack on her right to freely express her religion and on her right as a woman to dress as she wishes. He argued that “the suggestion that wearing a tiny nose stud is a threat to public health and safety is frankly ridiculous. Will this company now be sacking all women with pierced ears?” (The Press Association)

More: “The nose-stud wars: Political correctness or corporate practice?”

Update: After an internal hearing, Lalji’s employer decided that “the rules relating to facial piercings were mandatory only in catering operations.” She did not engage in catering and has been reinstated. (BBC).

(Not So Much) Naveen in Brave One

Andrews and Foster filmed The Brave One in New York. (celebsource.org)

While browsing movie listings over the weekend, I noticed that the cast of The Brave One, the latest Jodie Foster star vehicle, includes Naveen Andrews. As a Lost fan impatiently awaiting the next season scheduled for sometime never in 2008, this piqued my interest. Andrews plays Foster’s “sensitive, guitar-strumming male nurse” fiancé named David Kirmani. Or he does until he dies at the hands of thugs, an event that happens early in the film as the catalyst thrusting Foster’s character, radio host Erica Baines, into vigilante mode.

While Terrence Howard‘s role as a romantic interest and detective on the trail of the vigilante sounds like it would ameliorate the suspiciously UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT quality of Andrews’ early demise, that may be small consolation for us fans of Lost‘s Sayid looking to see more of Andrews on the big screen. Maybe we should rent Bride and Prejudice or My Own Country instead (actually, Netflix is nugatory on that last title, so maybe not). As for my ultimate choice of movie for last weekend? Rebel Without a Cause. No Naveen (just Dean) but rewarding nonetheless.

Shaheen a STAR Candidate

Shaheen Sheik’s “Wildflower World,” a soothing pop single with folk undertones and introspective lyrics, has a shot at being selected for a lounge CD from southern California’s modern adult contemporary radio station STAR 98.7. If selected the newly wed Sheik would perform live on mainstream radio and her track would be included on the CD. Voting runs 9/13 — 9/19. You can watch the video and show your support for Shaheen’s single by voting online. This multi-faceted artist gave some insight into her songwriting process in an interview with Mahiram.com.

“You know, I study the Sarod (north Indian classical instrument) and within Hindustani music there is such an emphasis on how time of day affects the raga you should play. I believe that 100%. The time of day, climate, surroundings are so key to the tempo of the song, the key, whether it’s major or minor and the topic of the lyrics.”

Previously: “A Tune of Her Own”; “How Sweet the Sound”; Jungli & Shaheen

Read the rest of this entry »

New Media & NY Fashion Week

Naeem Khan Spring 2008

New York’s Fashion week wraps up this Wednesday and if you weren’t personally invited, blogs might be your best bet for coverage of what’s happening and who’s showing up under the tents in Bryant Park. According to Women’s Wear Daily new media still only accounts for 10% of the overall issued media credentials at New York’s Fashion Week. But there’s no doubting that it’s a whole lot easier for the average fashion-watching web surfer to click into the blogosphere than it is to get into a designer’s show.

WWD‘s list of blogging bigwigs (Sartorialist, GoFugYourself) and relative newcomers (Fashionista–“style like you mean it,” Fashionologie–“the musings of a twentysomething American girl who wishes she could have a Freaky Friday incident and switch bodies with Phoebe Philo”) includes writers with fashion industry experience and those offering a perspective for women of color, size or limited budget (The Fashion Bomb–“all urban fashion…all the time,” Too Fat for Fashion—“fashion beyond sample sizes,” The Budget Fashionista–“an Ivy League-educated epidemiologist who had a love of fashion and lack of cash”). See the full article for more blogs that got on the list this year.

Homeland Security Targets Turbans

Getting through the metal detector is not enough for travelers wearing turbans.

Having Sikhs remove their turbans in public at airports is “like asking a woman to take off her blouse in public,” said J.P. Singh, president of the Sikh Center of the San Francisco Bay Area in El Sobrante. “It’s that bad.” (“Sikh men feel targeted at airports,” San Jose Mercury News)

But a new Homeland Security policy, implemented August 4, allows airport screeners to conduct pat-downs of religious headgear at the screener’s discretion. Previously, travelers wearing turbans were searched only if they failed to clear metal detectors or other preliminary checks.

Kuldip Singh, managing director of United Sikhs, was one of three men pulled aside by a screener on August 12 at the San Francisco International Airport. The Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund has heard “dozens of complaints, people being asked to remove their turbans in public and denied the use of a mirror or space to re-tie them” in the last three weeks, according to the group’s director and East Bay resident Kavneet Singh. Read the rest of this entry »

Hillary’s Handler: Huma Abedin

Abedin poses at the Watergate.

Vogue’s Age Issue (August) interviewed political insider Huma Abedin as a fashion exemplar in her 30s and offered a peek at the contents of her closet, suitcase and BlackBerry. The piece adds to the mystique surrounding Abedin, who was profiled this spring in The New York Observer‘s “Hillary’s Mystery Woman: Who is Huma?”, while placing her stage-center in two red dresses, a Vera Wang and an Oscar de la Renta. De la Renta often hosts Abedin and her employer Hillary Clinton at his Dominican Republic vacation home and, as he told the Observer, does not “want to die without seeing [Huma] in a strapless dress.”

Born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, into a “very traditional family” with a Pakistani mother and an Indian father, Abedin moved at age 2 with her family to Saudi Arabia where her father started an institute devoted to religious understanding and her mother helped create a private women’s college. With aspirations to become the next Christiane Amanpour, Abedin made her way as an intern to the White House in 1996, hoping to be placed in the press office. An assignment to the First Lady’s office hooked her to Hillary’s rising star, where she now plays an integral role in the presidential hopeful’s daily campaign schedule.

“I’m not sure Hillary could walk out the door without Huma.”—Mandy Grunwald, Clinton advisor.
“Huma does make the trains run on time.”—Bob Barnett, the Clinton’s longtime personal lawyer.
“I don’t know if it’s a chicken-or-the-egg thing—Hillary affecting Huma or the other way around—but together they work.”—Mary Steenburgen, longtime Hillary friend and actress.

Elsewhere: Gawker; Jezebel; Live Beautifully

Huma spotting: At a corn boil in Iowa. At Hillary’s side in KC.

Previously: “Hillary Brings Tanden On Board For ’08″

Insane On the Plane: Harold and Kumar 2

A scene from Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle

The comedic duo John Cho and Kal Penn reprise their roles as Harold and Kumar for a trip to Amsterdam in the sequel to their White Castle flick. That’s what the title of Harold and Kumar Go to Amsterdam would lead you to believe. But the recently released trailer highlighting their misidentification as terrorists on the plane and detainment in an interrogation room may leave you wondering if the pair ever makes it to the city of frites and canals, or if they end up at Guantanamo.

Previously on NIRALI: “Five Questions for Kal Penn”; “Film Review of H & K”; “Kal Penn Goes to Hollywood”

Also insane on the plane: Dishad Husain’s Viva Liberty! features a character named Woody Ali who is misidentified as a terrorist when he tries to go on holiday and ends up at a notorious US detention center.

More: While the passenger who freaks out at the sight of Kumar in the movie trailer may be an exaggerated caricature/plot device, a recent amendment seeks to shield from lawsuits airline passengers and others who report suspicious activity to authorities (“King bill aims to protect terrorism tipsters”). Proposed in response to the 2006 case of six Muslim imams removed from a plane after a passenger raised concerns about them, the bill has faced opposition from those who argue that it encourages racial profiling (NPR).

Zerobridge: Debut Music Video & EP

Zerobridge, profiled in NIRALI‘s November 2006 issue (“Band of Brothers”), is coming out on September 18 with their latest EP named after its title track, “Havre de Grace.” The name comes from a town in northern Maryland, close to where the brothers grew up. “It means Harbor of Grace,” explains lead singer/guitarist and songwriter Mubashir “Din” Mohi-ud-Din. “I always just loved the sound of it and what it could mean. The tune itself sounds fresh and defines who we are right now and where we have been as a band.” The rock band is gearing up for release parties in the tristate area to promote their new album. Keep a look out on their myspace for all the updates.

For now, check out their first music video, directed by Musa Sayeed, winner of the best documentary short at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival for his film, A Son’s Sacrifice.

Previously: Don’t Miss Zerobridge at CMJ

Update: Snaps and clips from the release party for their new album, at Mercury Lounge in Lower East Side.

Brain Surgeon in Buffalo Gives Back

Dr. Kumar Bahuleyan in India (Buffalo News)

“I was born with nothing; I was educated by the people of that village, and this is what I owe to them,” said neurosurgeon Dr. Kumar Bahuleyan, 81, about his donations to Chemmanakary, Kerala, the village where he was born. (“Buffalo neurosurgeon donates $20 million to his native Indian village,”The Buffalo News)

“As an ‘untouchable,’ Bahuleyan had to take a roundabout route to school because he wasn’t allowed to pass within a few hundred yards of the Hindu temple, even though he was born a Hindu.” In the 1930s he watched younger siblings die from waterborne disease and suffered from typhoid and smallpox himself.

After reaching the top level of a “lower-caste” school by age 12 or 13, a chance encounter between his father and a headmaster led to his education at an English-language school. After high school he attended medical college in Madras and neurosurgical training in Edinburgh, Scotland. Unable to land a job in his specialty at home, he went to North America and eventually ended up practicing in Buffalo, where he also earned a reputation as a shrewd investor.

His contributions to his birthplace began in a major way in 1989 when his charitable foundation built a small clinic, latrines, roads and a water supply for the villagers, and later on a hospital. In 2004 the foundation opened a spa health resort to help fund his charitable efforts. What’s next? The doctor told NPR that he plans to remedy the village’s landlocked state by building a bridge across the river.