http://blog.shashwati.com Shashwati Talukdar's Musings Sat, 19 Dec 2009 02:32:18 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en We have a new name for the film, it used to be called, 'Hooch and Hamlet in Chharanagar,' now its called 'Please Don't Beat Me, Sir!' Kerim redid thewebsite, after we had a couple of our designers fall through. And I finally got around to cutting a trailer. http://blog.shashwati.com/2009/12/19/please-dont-beat-me-sir/ Scenes from an immigrant's workers rights I went to yesterday in Taipei.  The theme this year was domestic workers, who want the right to a day off.  David on Formosa has a blog post about the march and immigrant workers in Taiwan. Every time I see labor contractors in the Foreign ... http://blog.shashwati.com/2009/12/14/immigrant-workers-rights-in-taiwan-2009/ Dude,I can't even begin to tell you about all that is wrong with the Hindu references in your article. For starters, there is no such thing as a Hindu Fakir (its an Orientalist Colonial invention) and Shakti iliterally means energy, not fertility (except in  the concupiscent Western imaginarium).  Happy to ... http://blog.shashwati.com/2009/11/26/the-note-i-sent-the-idiot-journalist-about-the-bed-of-nails-story-httpwww-nytimes-com20091125worldeurope25stockholm-html/ The Bench from Shashwati Talukdar on Vimeo. A little video I made with friends Olga Humphrey and John Plenge. Posted via email from Shashwati's posterous http://blog.shashwati.com/2009/11/19/the-bench/ Here is a review I did for Dhvani magazine. They have an interview with the author, Shilpa Agarwal. Also look for an interview with the delightful Manjula Padmanabhan. Welcome your comments on the following: 'Haunting Bombay' is a supernatural thriller/mystery and a coming of age story. Pinky is a ... http://blog.shashwati.com/2009/08/12/haunting-bombay/ We encounter some Buddhist nuns helping the farm next door with their peanut harvest. The dog steals a work glove. Everyone thinks this rudeness is hilarious. The nuns reward the dog with mango pudding. "mmmmm mango...!" Damn Buddhists! plotting to spoil someone elses' dog next. http://blog.shashwati.com/2009/07/22/dog-walk-hazard/ "Slumdog Star for Sale" scream the headlines of a British tabloid, News of the World. Across the Atlantic a New York Times reader suggests: The best thing that could happen to these poor little kids–Rubina and the little boy–would be for them to be adopted out of their terrible family ... http://blog.shashwati.com/2009/04/22/manufacturing-outrage-slumdog-and-its-discontents/ Here is what we sent out to all the people who have been so supportive and kind over the course of making this film. You can sign up for our quarterly updates on our website. HAPPY YEAR OF THE OX! Over the summer we returned to Chharanagar to record the film sound ... http://blog.shashwati.com/2009/02/02/chharanagar-doc-update/ Daily Kos has a post about the DREAM Act: Each year approximately 2.8 million students graduate from US High Schools. Some will go on to college, join the military, or take other paths in life, hopefully all becoming productive members of society. But for approximately 65,000 of them, these opportunities will never ... http://blog.shashwati.com/2009/01/16/dream-act-and-immigrant-kids/ Two very different op-eds in the New York Times that make an interesting juxtaposition. The first, by Gurcharan Das (Das is a right wing thinker-- neo-liberal, anti-reservation, but not a Hindutva sympathizer) which has an essentialist, "India Shining" trajectory with a Reaganite twist: ....common saying among Indians that “our economy grows ... http://blog.shashwati.com/2009/01/03/can-gurcharan-das-learn-from-krugman/