Kumbh-A-Yaa

Naga Sadhus at River’s Edge. AP Photo

Millions gathered in celebration of the Ardh Kumbh Mela this past weekend, along the riverbank where the spiritual Ganga, Saraswati and Yamuna waters converge.

The area in and around Allahabad will welcome about 70 million visitors to the festival in the coming weeks (some suggest Sonia Gandhi will be among the bathers again this year)

Last Friday, when astrologers determined that 6.10 AM was the most auspicious time to take a dip , millions, “undeterred by numbing winter temperatures” took the plunge.

But, as NPR’s All Things Considered reports, many pilgrims are angry that the waters have become incredibly polluted (due to industrial and human waste that continues to be drained into the river).

The award-winning 2004 film Short Cut To Nirvana: Kumbh Mela documents the journey of pilgrims (including that of an American couple Justin Davis and Dyan Summers). It is now out on DVD.

The Kumbh Mela began on January 3 and will continue until the 16th of February.

Mirza Takes The Mic

(Steve Ullathorne)

Shazia Mirza headlines this week in San Francisco at the Punchline Comedy Club through the 20th. In addition to her stand-up routine, she acts and writes for TV and theater. Later this month Mirza will be presenting a BBC Radio 4 documentary on “Humour Around the World.”

A Luxembourg news magazine interviewed Mirza last year when she was in town for a festival that celebrates alternative and fringe female artists and performers (Can Somebody Plug Me In?), and described changes over time in her act.

More information:
ShaziaMirza.org
Punchline Comedy Club

Just Ghee Happy

Little Book of Hindu Deities

“Honestly, I can’t think of anything that was good about growing up Hindu in America. I found it really to be a burden, actually,” says Pixar animator Sanjay Patel.

But that hasn’t stopped Patel, 32, from creating The Little Book of Hindu Deities, his vivid ode to 50 divinities–each one introduced with an incredibly hip anime-esque illustration.

Patel, who is from California’s San Bernadino valley, has worked on Monsters Inc., The Incredibles and The Simpsons. He was a bit nervous about sharing The Little Book with his parents:

“I waited a very long time before showing it to my dad. I was worried about how he would react. But he loved it! He also encouraged me to do more Hindu things. He was like, ‘OK, now that you are writing this book why don’t you light a candle?’ ”

For more on Sanjay Patel, including samples of his designs, free funky screensavers, and merchandise, visit his website GheeHappy.Com.

Celebration of Sikh Film

The Spinning Wheel Film Festival comes back to the Northern California Bay Area on February 3. Celebrating the stories of Sikhs worldwide, the festival brings diverse interpretations of their culture, identity and history to the screen. Started in Toronto three years ago and named after the Punjabi “charkha” spinning wheel, the festival’s lineup so far includes a short film on the Sikh martial arts form called Gatka, The Gold Bracelet—the award-winning directorial debut from veteran actor Kavi Raz, Who Do you Think You Are – Gurinder Chadha, a look at the successful director’s family history, from London to Kenya to India to Pakistan and Amu, the story of a 21 year-old Indian American woman who returns to India for the first time as an adult and stumbles onto the secrets of her past, set against the backdrop of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.

More Information:
The Spinning Wheel Film Festival

Chocolate & Spice & Everything Nice

Hmm…I see more than one way to define “one square.”

Chocolatier Vosges suggests that we eat more of its product as our New Year’s resolution—“It is true! Dark chocolate is good for you, in moderation, and will help you battle other cravings. Eat one, satisfying square a day.” To help us out with this willpower-testing resolution, Vosges offers a line of “Exotic Candy Bars” that includes two bars featuring Indian ingredients: the Calindia bar with “Indian green cardamom + organic California walnuts + dried plums + Venezuelan dark chocolate” and the Naga bar with “sweet Indian curry powder + coconut flakes + deep milk chocolate.” (The latter doesn’t make the cut for a dark chocolate-only New Year’s resolution!)

What chocolate would Goddess Lakshmi enjoy? I don’t know, but Her image can be seen on the Vosges Web site, where She is described as “a blessing symbol of good luck and a favorite to Hindu women,” in addition to being “an inspirational symbol for our company.”

My experience with fine chocolate (as opposed to the close-to-the-cash-register variety) is limited, but I did try Dolfin’s Hot Masala milk chocolate recently—I recommend it, especially if mocha-chai flavored sweetness sounds appealing to you. Have you tried it or the Vosges bars?

Big Fuss Over Little Mosque

Creator/producer Zarqa Nawaz. (Sophie Giraud/CBC)

CNN’s Paula Zahn recently visited the set of the CBC’s Little Mosque on the Prairie to report on the new comedy series about a small community of Muslims living in rural Saskatchewan. The BBC, The New York Times, The LA Times and several other news outlets outside of Canada have also been paying attention to the show. It is scheduled to debut January 9, and the buzz has been building up. Torontoist has photos and more from Thursday’s promotional event in Dundas Square featuring camels and “The World’s Largest Chicken Shawarma.” Will it live up to the hype? The clips look promising, and it would be great to hear from people who tune in to watch this next week. Let us know what you think!

The show’s creator and producer, 39 year-old filmmaker and mother of four Zarqa Nawaz, of Regina, Saskatchewan, hopes her children will see the new face of Canada in the show. She also hopes it will make people laugh.

More information:
Little Mosque on the Prairie Official Web Site
Official CBC Blog posts on Little Mosque
CBC news clip with interview of Nawaz
YouTube clips (1, 2)—these are also on the show’s site.

The Morning After: Nawaz responds to questions via chat and email following the show’s debut, including this gem: “How much are you paid by Al Qaida to produce your show to try to soften up the Canadian public for an attack?”

Watch The Pilot: On Google Video

Governor’s Family Grows

Photo credit: Daniel Fuhr, Governor’s Office

Utah Governor Jon Huntsman is back from India, where he and wife Mary Kaye finalized their adoption of baby Asha.

Asha spent the first year of her life at the Matru Chhaya orphanage in Nadiad (near Ahmadabad in Gujarat) and now joins her six new siblings in Salt Lake City.

The Huntsmans, who donated $10,000 to the orphanage, promise to raise Asha as an “American” but make sure she will “also maintain some of the Hindu values that were part of her first year of life (because being Hindu and being American are mutually exclusive?).”

“You walk outside the orphanage and you see the sheer poverty,” says Mary Kaye Huntsman. “You also see a lot of people smiling. Despite their circumstances, they find happiness. Maybe that’s something all of us can take to heart.”

Asha is one of 1,000 Indian orphans adopted each year by non-Indian families (300 of those families are American).

Source: DeseretNews.Com
For more information on how to reach India’s orphanages, go here

Giant Buddhas Come to New York

Time magazine calls it “A subdued, indeed Zen-like rumination on the things that war spoils.”

We call it a worthwhile way to spend a Thursday night.

If you’re in the New York area, check out Christian Frei’s documentary The Giant Buddhas, a meditation on the senseless destruction of Afghanistan’s historic Buddha statues.

The Asia Society (725 Park Avenue at 70th Street) will show the film beginning at 6:30PM this Thursday night.

Stick around after the screening to hear Zolaykha Sherzad (Associate Principal for the architectual firms of ARX New York and ARX Kabul) talk about her efforts to help Afghani women.

Tickets are only five bucks for students.

Call the Asia Society’s Box Office at 212-517-ASIA to reserve yours.

*Update: Check out the December 6 NYT piece on the Buddhas of Bamiyan Valley.

Ten Years Since Dr. Salam’s Death: Isn’t It Time for Pakistan to Recognize Him?

I was heartened to read these two editorials in leading Pakistani newspapers this past week: The Daily Times’ “The tragedy of our treatment of Dr. Abdus Salam” and DAWN’s “Lest we foget.” The Daily Times piece opens with these words:

Dr Abdus Salam (1926-1996) died ten years ago. He was the first Pakistani to get a Nobel Prize in 1979. But he might be the last if we continue to allow our state to evolve in a way that frightens the rest of the world. Our collective psyche runs more to accepted ‘wisdom’ than to scientific inquiry; and even if we were to display an uncharacteristic outcropping of individual genius the world may be so frightened of it that it might not give us our deserts.

It doesn’t seem like Pakistan will act on the message of these editorials, but it’s encouraging to see them nonetheless.

Celebrate Diversity: Celebrate Christmas

Anyone else amused by this ginormous ad on the op-ed page of today’s New York Times (courtesy of the Catholic League)?