Kerim redesigned the Hooch and Hamlet website.

For those who don’t know, this is for our documentary project in Ahmedabad, India. Check it out.

Finally, what I have been waiting for, an animated movie in Punjabi. An engineer and his friend in Sas Nagar, Punjab dipped into the internet and read a couple of books and created, Sahibzadey: A Saga of Valor & Sacrifice. The Indian Express reports:

Recalls computer engineer Navnit Singh: “We were griping about the youth being ignorant about religion when my friend Sukhwinder Singh Sekhon suggested that animated films could bridge the gap.”

You can watch a trailer of the film on their web-site (kind of a slow download). From the trailer the film looks like quite the promoter of the myth of the martial races. I wonder if the sequels the duo have planned will have some of the great sufi aspects of Sikhism.

Writing has been spotty on the blog for a while and here is the reason. This December, Kerim and I are going to India to shoot a documentary film about the residents of one city’s slum who are using theatre to fight back against decades of prejudice and police oppression.

Help us tell their story.

Even though we are paying our own way to India, we need to raise $15,000 to cover expenses for the shoot: transportation in India, accommodation, salaries for the people who will help us on the shoot, equipment rentals, etc. We’ve already raised $3,000, but we need to do much more.

Kerim wrote about the people of Chharanager after our last trip. You can read more about the film, the people and organizations involved, and how to give money, or the film’s web site. And here is a Flickr photo gallery of Chharanager pics.

Thank you.

PS: If you can offer support in the way of help with web/graphic design, promotion, advertising, or just posting this information on your own blog, that will be much appreciated as well!

No Indian wedding is complete without a small army of extended family and friends showing up. Its a testament to the prestige of the families involved. But what if you don’t know that many people. You don’t have to worry, you can rent your guests. The BBC reports:

The Best Guests Agency has around 70 people on its books. They can turn up either traditionally dressed or in smart Western clothes, and are briefed on family history and pretend to be friends from the past.

Who are these pretend friends?

Some of the guests for hire are students, but others are doctors, chartered accountants, and other professionals.

“You might wonder why doctors want to come,” Mr Syed said.

“But I suppose they don’t mind having a nice evening out, and I pay them well.”

The amount charged per guest is varied according to what Mr Syed described as the “level” required, and how smartly it is wished that they dress.

Three categories are offered, with the highest - at around 600 rupees - being be-suited guests who are tall, well-built, light-skinned and who can converse well.

Mr. Syed says none of his “guests” have ever been outed. If you can hire mourners for a funeral why not guests for a wedding?

President Musharraf will be in New York City for the UN summit. The President has been quoted regarding rape victims:

“This has become a moneymaking concern. A lot of people say if you want to go abroad and get a visa for Canada or citizenship and be a millionaire, get yourself raped.”

Pakistan does not have any laws regarding domestic violence, and has several Taliban like laws that are very oppressive to women.

There will be a rally in support of human rights in Pakistan, specifically women’s rights. The unprecedented demonstration, is organized by the Asian-American Network Against Abuse (ANAA) and Amnesty International USA´s NYC Women´s Action Team.

The rally will be this Saturday, September 17, from 12 noon to 3 pm, outside the Roosevelt Hotel at Madison Avenue and East 45th Street.

Trains: 7 to 5th Avenue; 4,5,6,S to 42d-Grand Central; E,V to Lexington (@53d St.); B,D,F,V to 42d St & walk.

Bus M1, M2, M3, M4, M42, M104.

For more information contact: Contact: Ijaz Syed (ANAA): syedi AT sbcglobal.net; 408-838-0952; Jeanne Bergman (AIUSA): wheedle AT earthlink.net; 212-979-7213; cell 917-714-5501.

Update: See Sepia Mutiny’s post on the rally.

Go to Amardeep’s blog for some well deserved outrage at the Bruce Sterling post in Wired, which pours misplaced sarcasm on India’s offer of help after Katrina and then goes on to quote Kipling’s racist poem, “Gunga Din!” Yes, its true. What is with these people? Ngugi has an essay on Z-mag about the constant comparison of Katrina to a “Third World” disaster:

The American citizen has been stewing in nationalism, manifest destiny and the myth of the democratic society that errors but never oppresses or marginalizes for so long that even a natural disaster cannot be seen and understood outside this lens. And the fact that most of the victims are predominantly poor and African American is not being understood as a creation of very specific domestic policies and conservative ideologies; it has to be filtered through the “Third World”. As if a disaster from that “part of the world” somehow managed to sneak through the porous Mexican borders.

He moves on to Bush’s speeches:

It is interesting therefore to look at President Bush’s remarks after touring New Orleans on September 2nd after four days of inaction. His first sentence was “ I’ve just completed a tour of some devastated country”. A detached statement but it gets worse ” a little later he says “I know the people of this part of the world are suffering…” and he goes on to talk about how progress is being made. Then he says “ The people in this part of the world have got to understand…” Shortly after this, he says “You know, I’m going to fly out of here in a minute, but I want you to know that I’m not going to forget what I’ve seen” and again refers to his constituents as “good folks of this part of the world”. It is almost as if he is in a different country consoling its citizenry. He himself is so detached about what is happening in the very country he leads that he refers to it as “this part of the world”. As far as I know, no one in the mainstream media picked this up, they too are reporting on that “part of the world”.

Also, look at Kerim’s post on the language of Katrina.

There is a sudden enthusiasm for dress codes in Indian universities. First it was Mumbai University, then it was Delhi and now its Anna University. And mind you, this dress code only applies to women. The logic goes something like this–women are getting harassed, they are getting raped and molested because men are tempted, and they are tempted by mini-skirts and spaghetti straps.

I have news for these, mostly, middle aged men who are so keen to protect female students–YOU CAN BE COVERED HEAD TO TOE AND STILL BE HARASSED. Did these people bother to actually speak with women before they came up with this brilliant idea? I don’t think so. Understandably the students have been up in arms about this “blame the victim” measure. It doesn’t take a sociologist to figure out that sexual harassment is about gender discrimination, and the exercise of patriarchal power. Com’on you Phd-ed knuckle-heads.

Update: There is a petition on the web you can read and sign.

Its always interesting to look at conspiracy theories after a catastrophe. My favorite after 9/11 was that it was Hindu-Jewish conspiracy! The Bangladesh blasts are no exception. The blog DeshCalling (via Global Voices)has a bunch of posts about India’s nefarious plans about its neighbors. One of its posts proclaims:

RAW - The Real Masterminds Behind Bangladesh Bomb Attacks?

Then it goes on to discuss, “India uses Nazi style propaganda to vilify Bangladesh.” It reports on a press meeting following a brouhaha caused by the Indian Ambassadors remarks that Islamists had carried out the bomb attack (I thought those folks had claimed responsibility, so why the outrage?), the article explains this breach of diplomatic etiquette:

India cannot accept Bangladesh’s independent existence and is now running a campaign saying Bangladesh is threat for them, he said, adding the country wants to see unrest in Bangladesh as in Nepal and Sri Lanka.

It sounds patently absurd. Bangladesh has a good record on some things (see previous posts here and here), I wonder what is really going on underneath these paranoid rantings.

Also see Sepia Mutiny’s post on the Bangladesh blasts.