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).

Aish & Ben in The Last Legion

Rai and Firth in The Last Legion.

I’ve been seeing lots of commercials for the upcoming movie The Last Legion which is giving plenty of screen time to an ass-kicking Aishwarya.

Though not revolving around her, the movie follows the fall of Rome and the exile of young Romulus (played by Thomas Sangster, the adorable little boy from Love Actually) to Capri. He is rescued by Aurelius (Colin Firth) and along with a Byzantine warrior (Aishwarya Rai) and a wizard (Ben Kingsley) Romulus searches for the last legion of people who are still loyal to Rome.

See the trailer here. The Last Legion opens this Friday August 17.

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.

Hamid on Hate

Mohsin Hamid (Photo: Carolin Seeliger)

Earlier this week the Washington Post offered four opinion articles featuring perspectives on America from Muslim writers, including “Why Do They Hate Us?” from Mohsin Hamid, author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Moth Smoke. Being born in Pakistan, raised in the States from age 3 to 9, going back to Pakistan and returning to the States for his college and graduate education, in addition to working in NYC provides him with a “textured” view of the U.S. and its foreign policy.

While the main topic is Hamid’s diagnosis of and advice for dealing with anti-Americanism, the piece also offers a glimpse at his own identification as partly “they” and “us.” The encounter he describes in a Dallas bookstore—an elderly gentleman with Hamid’s book in hand points to the man on the cover and asks, “So tell me, sir. Why do they hate us?”—may be seen in contrast to a typical reaction he noted receiving after the publication of his second novel, a work focused on an extended encounter between a Pakistani man who tells his story to an American stranger in a Pakistani cafe: “People often ask me if I am the book’s Pakistani protagonist. I wonder why they never ask if I am his American listener.”

Read the full article for Hamid’s analysis and a transcript of the subsequent chat between Hamid and Post readers.

“East Facing” Debuts On West Coast

Radhakrishnan

Solo artist and founder of Carnatic jazz ensemble VidyA, Prasant Radhakrishnan invites you to a concert in Milpitas, California, on August 5, benefiting the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and marking the release of his third Carnatic saxophone album, “East Facing.” (Buy tickets here or here. To hear the album, visit his music page and launch player.) The album’s title references the “tradition that the student must face East when bowing to receive the guru’s blessings with the intention of growing and moving forward.” Radhakrishnan’s musical guru is Padmashri Kadri Gopalnath (“Saxophone Chakravarthy”), “the man who almost single-handedly made the Indian saxophone respectable.” (India Currents.)

“I wanted to do something that was relevant locally but still had a universal message beyond something as simple as ‘a CD has been released,’” says Radhakrishnan. “LLS is a nonprofit that is dealing with a very relevant issue today, especially with the Indian community (see helpvinay.org and helpvinayandsameer.org). I have done many benefit concerts for things like AID and Asha, but had not done something so close to the community and also related to health. Reading about these issues, I really wanted to do something to get involved, however small.” Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

Celeb Sari Spotting: Katherine Heigl

Katherine Heigl (Just Jared).

Tipster M passes along this sighting of actress Katherine Heigl on hiatus from Grey’s Anatomy and wearing a sari for her upcoming film 27 Dresses, scripted by The Devil Wears Prada screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna and directed by Anne Fletcher. The romantic comedy is the story of a single woman who has served as a bridesmaid 27 times, and takes the part once again for her sister’s wedding to the man Heigl’s character is in love with.

A closer look at some of the photos on Just Jared, the premise of the movie and the often heard bridesmaid’s complaint about hideous gowns all suggest that the film’s costume designer was shooting for somewhere below the stunning/elegant benchmark. Sari experts Nika and Natasha from the site’s comments section weighed in with their critique: 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″