On repeat

I've been feeling guilty for not writing more so I'm going to start doing so...and not feel the responsibility to make these long or all that interesting (especially since it's mainly just me reading these posts in the first place).



Last week I went to the Falu CD release party and I have to say...as critical as i can be (with no just cause) of some of the new music that's out there (especially music with a brown twang), I was blown away by Falu's performance. Her music brings classical indian music to new heights with dancing beats, a rock solid band and, of course, her brilliant voice.

I was in CT (home state) this past weekend and I spent a good deal of my time there driving around Windsor, fairly aimlessly, listening to her CD over and over again. Her voice is soothing, yet with a kick. The band is clearly composed of some very accomplished musicians and the production value of the CD is very tight. Falu's voice took me down the memory lane of childhood--weaving together india and america in a unique and tasteful way.

So, if there is anyone out there reading this, I HIGHLY recommend you take a minute and check the band Falu, purchase the CD and support artists that are doing amazing work.

GIF Wesbite

Well, here it is...a first draft look at the Global India Fund Website. It's just a rough skeleton for what's to come....a tiny bit of info on what the organization is about. It needs to be filled out...more information, substance, etc. But for now, you know who to contact if you want to learn more about GIF.

round 1

jogi from saritabhatt (sNb productions) on Vimeo

this past weekend (5/19) we celebrated the upcoming wedding of my good friends vicii and anush....we from the NYU crew (me, ruk and barbara) would like to take full credit for making this wedding happen given that we were the 3 people that introduced them.

so a group of us (doris, barbara, kiks, michelle and me) got together on various saturday mornings over the past 2 months and put together this little dance for them. the songis called Jogi andit's by Punjabi MC....i picked the song because it apprrpriately spoke to the couple's love for hip-hop, dancing and all things that slant towards the ghetto. it was also short enough for us to only make fool's of ourselves for all of 3 minutes and 11 seconds and it had a builtin applause in the song....all reasons to me. but the most priceless thing about this song is the lyrics:

Na de dil pardesi nu, tainu nit da rona pai jaaoga
Don't give your heart to a foreigner, or you will have to cry everyday
Naal ranjhe te jogi de, tainu jogan hona pai jaaoga
Falling in love with an ascetic/hermit will make you the same
main ishq de allayah zakhman de khud has has ke moonh see laangi,
I will soothe all my pains from love, with a smile on my face
je yaar mera mainu zehar dave, main gat gat kar ke pee langi
Even if my lover gives me poison, I will gulp it down readily
Come on ......

and this weekend--memorial day--the wedding....

The Big Act to Follow

This is a link to one of the many articles published on my sister's recent trip to India with Ashely Judd and YouthAIDS/PSI. CLICK HERE

One of the many positive outcomes of her trip has been the creation of the Global India Fund, a donor advisory fund that will collaborate with local NGOs and programs in India that are working to solve the country's public health problems. It's a very exciting time for both of us (since I'm working on the Global India Fund with her). Proposal writing, powerPointing, logo making, meetings, talking, collaborating, more and more and more....and it just keeps making the Fund bigger and better....GIF, you heard it here first....soon to be a household name among the charitable-giving South Asian global community.

screeeeeeeeeech BOOM!

so this is long overdue and i've been clearly slacking at my attempts to be a certified "blogger"....but here we go.

last weekend i woke up at 830AM to an alarming crashing sound that didn't sound just like an accident. I looked out my window and say that a car had somehow run right into a building at the corner of s. elliot and fulton street in Fort Greene....right next to the store My Little India. I have no idea as to what happened or why this occurred, but i proceeded to take a few pictures with my camera phone of the accident. Neighbors came running out in robes and PJs, people stood jaw-dropped at the site and I saw 3 guys walk out of the car with no noticeable injuries.

what was even more crazy, was that the car went INTO the building !!! that is just nuts..a brick building. I am surprised that the building couldn't withstand the impact (so sketchy) and that no one was hurt.

A Saturday in Fort Greene, Brooklyn...random.

The Global India Fund

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Sarah Freeman
April 2, 2007
202-994-8874
mcmsxf@gwumc.edu








GW Medical Center Professor Joins Hollywood Actress to Raise Awareness of HIV

Washington, DC— In an effort to raise awareness of HIV among those at risk in India, Amita Vyas, PhD, assistant professor in the department of Prevention and Community Health at the GW School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS) joined Hollywood actress Ashley Judd and YouthAIDS/Population Services International (PSI) on a mission to Mumbai, India. With a population of more than one billion, it is estimated that at least 5.7 million people in India are infected with HIV, the world’s largest number of HIV infected persons.

The National Geographic Chanel filmed this Indian mission, which will air as an hour long special on World AIDS Day, December 1, 2007, in more than 170 countries and to more than 200 million households around the world. The documentary starring Ashley Judd and Bollywood actress Sushmita Sen focuses on the complex relationships between women’s rights and empowerment on HIV. Women and children are increasingly becoming vulnerable to HIV/AIDS and it estimated that 38 percent of infected persons in India are women. The male to female ratio of HIV infected people has shifted in recent years. In 2001 there were 55 HIV infected females to every 100 HIV infected males. Just four years later in 2005, it was reported there were 60 HIV infected females to every 100 HIV infected males. This indicates the increasing feminization of HIV/AIDS in India. “The empowerment of girls and women is an essential tool to preventing the HIV/AIDS emergency from exploding any further,” Ashley Judd told reporters in India.




The delegation spent one week in Mumbai, India’s financial capital and home to Bollywood, a Hindi language film industry in India. Dr. Vyas visited and spoke with commercial sex workers, in Kamthipura. She also spent time in Dharvi, the largest slum in Asia and she observed PSI/India’s HIV prevention programs such as street theater, help lines, and social marketing of condoms. Dr. Vyas spent time at voluntary counseling and testing centers for sex workers and their male clients. In Mumbai, approximately 5,000 sex workers reside, and an estimated 45 percent are HIV positive.

The mission was complimented with a series of high-level meetings and receptions with Mumbai’s corporate leaders and the entertainment industry, to develop creative partnerships in the prevention of HIV. “Public-private partnerships are the key to combating public health issues such as HIV in India. The Indian-American community has the power and potential to join forces in a meaningful way to build the capacity of NGOs in India who are saving lives,” said Dr. Vyas. “We need to be ‘smart’ donors and provide support for evidence-based programs in the public health sector of India. We have the ability, resources and most importantly the compassion and courage to make a difference.”

The George Washington University Medical Center is an internationally recognized interdisciplinary academic health center that has consistently provided high-quality medical care in the Washington, DC metropolitan area for 176 years. The Medical Center comprises the School of Medicine and Health Sciences, the 11th oldest medical school in the country; the School of Public Health and Health Services, the only such school in the nation’s capital; GW Hospital, jointly owned and operated by a partnership between The George Washington University and Universal Health Services, Inc.; and the GW Medical Faculty Associates, an independent faculty practice plan. For more information on GWUMC, visit www.gwumc.edu.




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for the sake of the name

Friday night (3/16) I saw the Namesake at BAM. I'm not generally one for writing a movie review but this one struck a chord. So I can at least give it that much credit...it made me feel compelled to respond to it, even if just in my small unread blog-like way. Any chord. Most of the people I went with (who were mainly indo-American) didn't like the film...calling it a sell-out, cliché, and creatively defunct. I don't totally disagree but I do think that there is another side to consider.

The movie is based on a cliche theme. Bi-cultural, identity questioning, ABCDs. It was a popular theme (and a somewhat failed genre emerging in the late 1990's) that has passed its time. The ABCD experience has evolved...there are now 3rd and 4th generations popping up and those that have recently arrived from the motherland are coming to a "new" America....a place where, for the most part, people know what curry is, have seen an Indian woman in a sari and recognize the difference between American Indians and Indian Americans...(I'd like to emphasize FOR THE MOST PART..although maybe being born and raised on the East coast and living NYC has me jaded). But just because the theme is a more dated one, doesn't mean that movies, books, music, etc exploring this theme can't be fresh. In fact, I think that exploring these themes still do shed light on a topic that many people still don't understand. So, this is where my positive nod to the movie comes....the namesake is what it is. it explores a dated theme in a dated manner (although I wish it was explored in a fresh manner). It is the best ABCD movie that has been produced (on a large scale) to date (in comparison to American Desi, ABCD, etc etc). It isn't breathtaking, but maybe it's not meant to be. It lacks in strongly developing any characters and relationships, but maybe the America (read: white) audience that it was made for can't handle going too deep when dealing with a "foreign culture." 95% of the audience at BAM was non-Indian. When I went to see Mira Nair and Jhumpa Lahiri speak at the Barnes and Nobles in Union Square the week the movie opened, the audience was amazingly ethnically mixed...but then again, it was still predominantly white. And I don't say this to be negative, racist, etc...in fact, I think the opposite. I think that Nair and Lahiri have done a great job with illustrating a very standard immigrant experience to a larger mass-market audience....in a very standard way...again, it is what it is.

As far as the actual acting goes, I think that Tabu (Ashima) and Irrfan Khan (Ashoke) were true to their art, sincere and convincing. I appreciated (and actually wanted more of) the focus on Ashima (as opposed to the book which focuses on Gogol). It would have been more satisfying to see a deeper view of Ashima and Ashoke's relationship, which is so rich and meaningful. But they were both, hands-down, what makes this movie special and worth it.

Visually, the movie was well done..that is, of course, Nair's strong suit. She has that "slice-of-life" style that is visually engaging...her use of colors, framing and shot angles were captivating (sometimes, a few too many close ups of Kal Penn though)....and musically, Nitin Sawhney was amazing (as usual). I found the editing to be jumpy and it lacked a fluid thread. I realize that it's extremely challenging to boil down a 30 year old saga to 2 hours, which makes editing that much more important. I just think that there large chunks of missing time pieces or scenes that were cut too short...while at the same time, there were many scenes that were too long, dragged out and/or unnecessary.

So is it worth the $10 to go see this movie in the theater?..ABSOLUTELY...suppoort the brown people and their art, I say. For me, it the film wasn't the life-changing/inspiration story it had the potential to be...but it was entertaining and holds its ground as a higher-quality indo-America film...along the lines of an American romantic-comedy....

and there you have it. long, sorry, i know...