NRI TV Film Awards Debut in New York

Letter from USA


Raj S. Rangarajan

NEW YORK: Move over Golden Globes, Bollywood Awards and Oscars. Its now the turn of the NRI TV Film Club Awards. For the first time in North America Non Resident Indian (NRI) creative talent among actors, directors, producers was recognized and celebrated with awards.

Till recently, most of the moral support for performers came from close friends, family and well-wishers. We now have a forum – The NRI TV Film Club – which debuted in December, that honored 15 non-competitive films made in the United States. Brainchild of Tirlok Malik - an actor himself - the NRI TV Film Club aspires to encourage local artists (read South Asian) amidst the plethora of avenues and talent potential available in North America.
(L to R): Kishore Dadlaney, Producer of the film, Kehtaa Hai Dil Baar Baar, H. R. Shaw (TV Asia), Tirlok Malik (actor), Lal Dadlaney, co-producer of the movie and Video Sound, distributors and Sreenath Sreenivasan, Professor of Journalism at Columbia University.
This year’s NRI TV Film Awards function “was our first step and we were happy to honor all those who walked this way before us and all the filmmakers whose films reflected the immigrant experience,” said founder-president Malik.
Keynoter Madhur Jaffrey and actor Tirlok Malik
“We not only aim to provide a platform for all related talent to showcase but also to nurture it and project it into the world.” This year’s NRI TV Film Awards function “was our first step and we were happy to honor all those who walked this way before us and all the filmmakers whose films reflected the immigrant experience,” said founder-president Malik, “We not only aim to provide a platform for all related talent to showcase but also to nurture it and project it into the world.” The NRI TV Film Club is for producers, directors, screenwriters, actors, editors, production personnel and everyone else allied with the world of cinema and television. Malik emphasizes the relation between the artist and the audience. “An artist needs an audience to succeed, and we hope our club will create that awareness to help the audience meet the artist.”

Modeled on the Academy Awards, the Awards celebration included clips of films, commentaries, live performances, a comedy routine and two emcees. Films that won were selected based on the immigrant experience theme. The event was presented by H. R. Shah of TV Asia, a well-known community activist in association with Video Sound who have signed up as the distributing arm for the club’s movies.

A splendid standup act by Daniel Nainan (dad is Indian, mother of Japanese origin) carried the day for several people who understood and applauded his kind of humor. While some were riveted to their seats, many were more interested in the cold samosas that were freely available outside the Grand Ball Room of Manhattan Center Studios. Among other performers were Anisha Nagarajan (Bombay Dreams), the play; Sheetal Shah (Arya), Alok Mehta (American Chai) and Padma Khanna, the Bollywood dancer who teaches dance in the United States now.

Fusion Dance


Tirlok Malik has played more than 40 roles from an immigrant taxi driver to a lawyer to a porno shopkeeper. His first film Lonely in America grossed $20 million worldwide and was shown in 74 countries. He is motivated by the hope of helping other up-and-coming actors and producers specially after he had some unpleasant experiences with a distributing company. His second film Love, Lust & Marriage also continued the immigrant experience. A bachelor in Fine Arts, Tirlok has had professional training at the New York Academy of Theatrical Arts, The Actors Institute, the Weist Barron School of Television and the New School of Social Research.

Just as Indians are creating a presence in the world of mainstream cinema such as Manoj Night Shyamalan, Mira Nair, and Gurinder Chaddha, who have managed the crossover Malik, said, “We dream of achieving success together and developing a market for NRI films.”

Among the NRI fims that picked up awards were American Desi, directed by Piyush Pandya, Kehta Hai Dil Baar Baar, directed by Rahul Dholakia and produced by Video Vision, Piyu Gayo Paresh (Gujarati) directed by Kanu Chauhan, Lonely in America, directed by Barry Alexander Brown and produced by Tirlok Malik and Chander Malik.

Among the award presenters were Reeves Lehmann, Chair for the Film, Video and Animation Department at the School of Visual Arts, New York, Preeta Bansal, a former Solicitor General of the State of New York, Kamal Dandona, organizer of Bollywood Awards, Sreenath Sreenivasan Professor of Journalism at Columbia University, New York and Kanu Chauhan who organizes concerts for Indian-Americans and others.

[Raj S. Rangarajan is a New York based freelance writer. He covers trend stories on art, travel and lifestyles and reviews books, films and plays for media based in New York, California, Toronto, India and Australia.]

Playwright Tendulkar – A Major Hit in New York

Window on U.S.A.

Raj S. Rangarajan

The man was relaxed, sporting his trademark beard and clad in a polo neck sweater and scraggly loafers. In his element – in a theater setting with admiring fans – he seemed happy and at peace talking theater. I am referring to veteran playwright Vijay Tendulkar – in town – to participate in the month-long Tendulkar festival presented by Indo-American Arts Council (IAAC) and theater groups in Manhattan, New York.

Comfortable in his Indianness and conscious that he was admired for his talent, 76-year-old Tendulkar’s cool demeanour spoke volumes of his confidence and acceptance as a playwright with spunk…a creative original who had reached but had yet to write his last play. Tendulkar reminisced of how even as an infant he had been to plays since “my parents were very much interested in theater.”

The festival is indeed a tribute to Vijay Tendulkar’s prolific genius who has influenced – perhaps dominated – the Marathi stage with his 30 full-length plays, 23 one-acts, and eight screenplays. He has translated nine novels and two biographies into Marathi, and among the plays, eleven were for children and has also written short stories and essays on social criticism.

Apart from Sakharam Binder, at The Play Company in Manhattan, which is currently running, directed superbly by Maria Mileaf, starring Bernard White as Sakharam with Anna George (Laxmi), Sarita Choudhury (Champa) as Sakharam’s women, the festival includes play readings of Kamala, Mitrachi Goshta, Ghasiram Kotwal and Tendulkar’s newest play written completely in English – His Fifth Woman - directed by Sturgis Warner. The program includes screenings of films such as Arth (Shabana Azmi), Ardhya Satya (Om Puri), Nishant (Smita Patil).


Caption: Bernard White (Sakharam Binder) and Anna George (Laxmi) in the play - Sakharam Binder

This versatile screen and television writer, essayist and journalist was much ahead of his times. When his Sakharam Binder was released it 1972 it was surrounded with controversy since Sakharam, a brahmin by birth went against then society’s norms. The central character Sakharam is a bookbinder by profession but he fiercely opposes the hypocrisy seen in the institution of marriage. Through his character and those of the two women - Lakshmi & Champa, Tendulkar reaches into the depths of physical lust and violence in human beings. The other two characters in the play are Dawood, Sakharam's Muslim friend and Fowzdar Shinde, Champa's husband.


Caption: Lark's public reading of Vijay Tendulkar's His Fifth Woman

Interestingly, at a recent showing, thirty-pluses and forty-pluses comprised the audience – folks who were not even born or were just infants when Sakharam Binder debuted in India. Bernard White acquitted himself creditably as a tough, no-nonsense male and Anna George and Sarita Choudhary (Mississippi Masala) as dutiful women.

For the first time Tendulkar has written a play in English titled His Fifth Woman. At a well-attended play reading for Lark Play Development Center in Manhattan, six South Asians of Indian origin strutted their stuff. “Strutted” is being used advisedly because the play ends with actors actually cawing on stage like crows do since the death of a woman initiates a discussion between Sakharam (Sanjiv Jhaveri) and Dawood (Debargo Sanyal) on whether last rites should be performed for a kept woman whose husband had left her.

Tendulkar says, for this production he had to think in English since his normal frame of reference is Marathi - his mother tongue. The play portrays how money changes hands when the priest, performing last rites for the departing soul of the deceased, prior to its passage to the other world, takes short cuts by not reciting certain traditional chants at the cremation ground. Among his memorable experiences, Tendulkar allows with a gleeful glint in his eyes, “the experience of watching your play come to light with good acting.”

Since His Fifth Woman and a version of Sakharam Binder were directed by non-Indians (read non-Maharashtrians) being staged currently, the question, When a foreigner not steeped in the nuances of Marathi theater directs a Marathi play won't the performance suffer in the process? becomes relevant. While a grown Indian may understand the concept of death and crows at the cremation ground and portability of the soul without problem can a non-Indian audience or an audience that has grown up in America understand the concept of an individual’s soul being migrated? Was more explanation needed at some point?

Tendulkar’s candid answers to above questions: “Americans are naturally ignorant about Indian customs and rituals but I write in such a manner as to be understood despite this hurdle. Those who were there at the performance understood what I said. What matters in my plays is the essence and the characters through whom it is conveyed. If a director understands this then other cultural details do not matter so much. An Indian mind watching such a performance of an Indian play will have to adjust to the cultural gap.”

With three crows cawing and playing significant roles in His Fifth Woman, this reporter’s question to Tendulkar was why? Tendulkar’s response: I am a fan of crows and spend my time studying them whenever and wherever I find them. Among animals I have a brotherly feeling for the donkey. Both behave as if they have understood the essence of life and have compromised themselves to its unpleasant aspects. Crows sometimes remind me of wise men who are shunned by society.





Caption: Sarita Choudhury and Vijay Tendulkar (Photo: Carol Rosegg)






Caption: Vijay Tendulkar and Sturgis

At the Pan Asian Repertory Theatre where a staged reading of Tendulkar’s Ghashiram Kotwal (set in 18th century Poona) was presented to the accompaniment of drums by Raj Kapoor (of Nepali origin), Tendulkar said, “This play was a parallel but narrative reflection of those times (1972) when an arrogant political party (Congress) in Maharashtra state was ruling the roost little realising that a major political force was forming (Shiv Sena led by its founder Bal Thackeray). Interestingly, the cast included Filipinos, Japanese and two actors of Indian origin – Farah Bala and Bina Chauhan. Ably directed by Tisa Chang, the reading highlighted the arrogance of the Maratha ruler and how a Brahmin was enmeshed in the mix of contemporary politics.

No piece on Tendulkar can end without a reference to the controversy that Sakharam Binder created with the play being initially censored and banned because of its theme and saucy language. With tongue-in-check humour Tendulkar derided “the universal tribe of moralists”, many of whom hadn’t even seen the play but were taking sides. To a question if any play should have a message, Tendulkar’s response: “Actually, a play need not convey a message, but at least it should make a statement.” An ardent fan of famous American playwright Arthur Miller, Tendulkar confessed, “I do not like to watch my play being staged.”

[Raj S. Rangarajan is a New York based freelance writer. He covers trend stories on art, travel and lifestyles and reviews books, films and plays for media based in New York, California, Toronto, India and Australia.]

Splendid Odissi Spectacle Warms Hearts

Raj S. Rangarajan

NEW YORK - The rhythm, the swagger and the vibrant costumes were unmistakable. And, so were the charming, graceful movements and bold passion that the Odissi dancers showcased recently. The show was Neel: The Eternal Blue and the performers seemed to be extensions of the terrific ensemble they have created. One didn’t have to be born in India or to have learnt Oriya, the language spoken in Orissa in eastern India, where Odissi originated. All one needed was an open mind and an interest in the performing arts.

The multi-layered presentation was the creative choreographic effort of the Trinayan Collective, a group of dancers devoted to the study, performance and dissemination of Odissi. The spiritual content and sensuous variation of the music and the beat helped one comprehend the nuances that the dance-form offers.

Color has always been a mainstay in Indian dance interpretation and even the deities from different parts of India acquire different hues of the region and as understood by the locals for centuries. Krishna, the blue-bodied flute player, Shiva, the blue-throated one and kali, the blue-black goddess were alive, as one would expect, in merciful resonance with the limbs in tandem. The song-and-body gestures on occasion were robot-like though with a certain purpose symbolizing meaningful fulfillment. The blue color, of course symbolizes the fifth chakra in the human body, located at the bottom of the throat wherefrom creative inspiration springs forth.

Trinayan, or the third eye, represents the site of our inner selves, reportedly, the nexus of divine energy in each human being. Trinayan’s five core artists comprise Bani Ray, the teacher and re-stager for the group, Kakoli Mukherjee, Alicia Pascal, Taiis Pascal and Nandini Sikand, each with versatile skills. A Odissi dancer herself, Rajika Puri is the storyteller or narrator – a sutradhara – in traditional Indian theater who creates the collage of dances through stories, chants and lucid comments. An ardent follower of the Deba Prasad Das style of Odissi, Rajika’s knowledge of Indian and western classical music has helped her create for the stage (Flamenco Natyam) and the screen (Mississippi Masala) and many more visually appealing gems.

Each of the dancers has a personal story, and each is motivated with the common aspiration to dance and excel. From the age of 6, Bani Ray has been dancing and learned from gurus such as Shri Valmiki Banerjee, Sri Durga Charan Ranbir and late Shrinath Raut. An exponent of Mohini Attam and Manipuri styles as well, Bani is also active at Nehru Institute of Odissi Research and Training in Delhi. Originally from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Kakoli Mukerjee has been dancing Odissi since the age of 12 and works for a weekly publication in New York. A Manhattan speech therapist by day, Alicia Pascal started at 15 and learned under Deva Deva Jagatpate and now under Bani Ray and Guru Durga Charan Ranbir. Taiis Pascal too enrolled when merely 11 and works as a certified physical therapist in a New York hospital. Born and raised in Delhi, Nandini Sikand started learning Odissi at the early age of 7 under Shri Shrinath Raut. She moved to America for graduate school and studied with Ritha Devi and currently is a disciple of Shri Durga Charan Ranbir and Bani Ray. This Neel effort was her debut exploration of dance and film and is working for her Ph.D. in cultural anthropology.

[Raj S. Rangarajan is a New York based freelance writer. He covers trend stories on art, travel and lifestyles and reviews books, films and plays for media based in New York, California, Toronto, India and Australia.]

In the Realm of Gods and Kings ... Dazzling Displays at Asia Society in New York: Art Review

Arts & Culture

Raj S. Rangarajan

If its September in New York, its United Nations sessions with visiting world leaders and their entourages accompanied by traffic jams. It is also the start of the art season with art auctions and art appreciation sessions. This year has not been different. As auctioneers Christie’s and Sotheby’s were busy selling their pricey wares in midtown Manhattan, a few blocks north and west, was Asia Society showcasing two exhibitions that reflect India’s vibrant artistic and cultural traditions.

Titled “When Gold Blossoms: Indian Jewellery from the Susan L. Beningson Collection” the jewellery show covers 17th century to 19th century pieces from South India. Another classy display “In the Realm of Gods and Kings: Arts of India – Selections from the Polsky Collections and The Metropolitan Museum of Art” features more than 200 works of traditional Indian art ranging from the 2nd century B.C.E. to early 20th century, and acclaimed photographer Raghubir Singh’s creations. Selected pieces from the Polsky personal collection, Polskys’ gifts to their children and to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met), as well as works acquired by curators at the Met, are on display.


Caption: Krishna as a prince approaching the village girls Kishangarh, Rajasthan, India; ca. 1735-1740 Opaque watercolor on paper 28.6 x 43.2 cm


Caption: Sandals for a deity (padukas) of sheet gold over lac, set with rubies, emeralds, and diamonds and hung with pearls Deccan, India; 17th-18th century 11.5 x 6.5 cm Susan L. Beningson Collection
Photo: Benjamin Harris B.S.K.

Vishakha N. Desai, President, Asia Society and curator, says, “It is this capacity to absorb and fuse the new with incongruent juxtapositions of earlier eras that lead people to remark that Indians live in many centuries all at once, or that the past is ever present in India.” This collection of Indian art celebrates Cynthia and Leon Polsky who have had a deep connection with India and things Indian, starting with their first visit in 1960.

With its extensive history rooted in mythology and religion Indian art has always had a nuanced influence with the past and the present, with the mortal and the divine. India’s plethora of gods and goddesses has always played significant roles in the lives of average Indians and the Polsky collection depicts grand narratives or particular themes. The visitor will be expected to stretch his or her imagination – perhaps a wee bit more than normal - in drawing some of the connections. Photographs of temple-related subjects and exclusive works from Buddhist and Jain traditions provide a certain context for the religious diversity that India is. Raghubir Singh’s photographs are a feast for the eyes.

The Susan L. Beningson jewellery collection includes rings, anklets, earrings, earstuds, pendants for the hair, crowns and ornate swings for a deity. Photos of the time period placed next to the jewellery help understand how jewellery was worn. Dr. Molly Emma Aitken, an independent curator, who curated the exhibition says, “To adorn a person is to offer him or her protection, prosperity, respect and social definition. Certain components of jewellery are believed to have individual powers.” Gold, for instance, is thought to have the power to purify those it touches. The exhibits cover three realms of experience which have indeed dominated many an Indian theme for centuries: Jewellers, Women and Deities.

Susan L. Beningson, who serves on Asia Society’s Museum Advisory Committee, has been collecting Indian jewellery for several years and her collection of 17th, 18th and 19th century jewellery was featured in the “Sensuous and the Sacred: Chola Bronzes from South India” at Smithsonian’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery.





Caption: Gold Chettiar tali Tamil Nadu, India; 19th century 74 cm length
Susan L. Beningson Collection; Photo: Benjamin Harris B.S.K.










Caption: Pair of gold ear covers (karnapatras), set with rubies and emeralds Orissa, India; late 17th or early 18th century 7.4 x 5.4 cm Susan L. Beningson Collection; Photo: Bruce White









Caption: Gold bracelet with enamel work, set with rubies, diamonds and pearls South India; late 18th century 7 cm diameter Susan L. Beningson Collection; Photo: Benjamin Harris B.S.K.

Gold anklets, double-strand pearls and turban ornaments were once the prerogative of rulers, and forehead pendants, bracelets, necklaces, anklets and toe rings are still considered signs of a married woman. In Indian tradition, gold purifies while gems channel the energies of the planets, and these beliefs and traditions (some would term them, superstitions) continue to be followed and even celebrated in several parts of India.

The sixteen adornments (“solah shringar”) that constitute a woman’s beauty in traditional India would include jewellery, dress, perfume, soothing or healing balms and hair arrangements. Jewellery could also define a woman’s social, religious and regional identity. Silver and gold items have differing connotations. Designers of fashion and costume jewellery have obviously caught on: they know there is a piece of jewellery for almost every part of the body.

Did you know that the earliest jewellery in India was decorated with granulation, a technique that perhaps originated in Mesopotamia and spread to the Middle east, Central Asia and North Africa? According to curator Aitken, “granulation” remains an essential element of the Indian jeweller’s repertoire even today, which is evident in the exhibition.

Both Asia Society exhibitions are open till January 23, 2005. For details, please access www.asiasociety.org .

[Raj S. Rangarajan is a New York based freelance writer. He covers trend stories on art, travel and lifestyles and reviews books, films and plays for media based in New York, California, Toronto, India and Australia.]

Vanity Fair, Classy Entertaining Fare: Film Review. Movie directed by Mira Nair

Mira captures the philosophy of the novel and recalls the yogic question Thackeray posed, “Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire or, having it, is satisfied?”


(Images: BBC and movie website)
If you like movies about the past, about 19th century England with its lords and ladies in their colourful costumes and elaborate hairstyles; about lavish settings appealing to your senses and perhaps your sensibilities, this is the movie for you. Vanity Fair: A Novel Without a Hero is a retrospective story by William Makepeace Thackeray which was serialized in 1847-48 and the movie is directed by Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding). If you like classical times and the English with their customs and subtle nuances and humour, as also the British Empire you may like this fare.




The all-British cast with the exception of American Reese Witherspoon - the female lead - (Legally Blonde II), and twice nominated for Golden Globe Awards includes 67 speaking roles. Vanity Fair is a nostalgic narrative of those days of yore when heavy dresses and armour reigned. It was the time of the Regency, Napoleon had captured Vienna and Russia, England and America had their war, and slavery was being eradicated from the British Empire.

It is a story of Rebecca (Becky) Sharp, daughter of an impoverished English artist and a French chorus girl. Orphaned when very young, Becky yearns for a more glamorous life and uses her wit and street smarts, guile and sexuality to go up the ladder of high society. Like so many British stories, this one too has its share of pomp and nobility. Sir Pitt Crawley, the family paterfamilias is played by Bob Hoskins who was nominated for an Academy Award. Gabriel Bryne, an accomplished stage and movie actor, is The Marquess of Steyne and has amorous designs on Becky.

Reese has lived up to your Becky role as the smart, no-holds barred social climber and British actress Romola Garai turns in a sensitive performance starting with Miss Pinkerton’s Academy in Chiswick and later as a conflicted wife. Playing Becky’s close friend, Amelia Sedley, comfortable in her station, (Romola) portrays unmistakable differences in their upbringing, attitudes and ambitions in life. In 2003, Daily Variety cited Romola among 10 Actors to Watch. Mira Nair says, she picked Reese Witherspoon for the Becky Sharp character for her “wit, intelligence, guile and that enticing quality called Appeal, which makes an actor a movie star.”

Becky wins over Matilda Crawley, the family’s rich spinster aunt (played by Dame Eileen Atkins in many Shakespearean roles) and soon moves to London, where she secretly marries Matilda’s handsome heir Rawdon Crawley (played by Britisher James Purefoy). But, here’s the twist: Matilda doesn’t approve of the marriage which is out of class and Becky and Rawdon have to fend for themselves.

Rawdon, who, in real life, traces his family’s history to 1066 in Buckinghamshire, attempts to tame the adventurous spirit in Becky. To a query if he was comfortable wearing those heavy costumes, James Purefoy said, “It is sometimes cumbersome, you put on that waistcoat and you walk differently with all that weight, your shoulders go back, your neck extends and you develop a swagger.” This member of the Royal Shakespeare Company adds, “the idea is to make acting almost seem casual.”



When Napoleon invades Europe, Rawdon volunteers to serve and pregnant Becky is distraught. Amelia’s own husband George Osborne (Jonathan Rhys Meyers – most recently, the soccer coach opposite Parminder Nagra in Gurinder Chadha’s Bend it Like Beckham) also enlists for England. While Osborne does not survive the Battle of Waterloo, Rawdon returns to be with Becky and their son. But the irrepressible Becky is lacking in finance and comforts. Always keen on becoming part of London’s upper echelons, Becky finds a patron in the powerful Marquess of Steyne. Director Mira Nair has taken liberties with Thackeray’s text and said, “I was keen not to make any sets, whether it was a stately mansion or a stable, but to keep the narrative really fluid. Even the hairstyles and jewelry were a blend of the traditional and the modern” – and this creative effort reflects her passion for Thackeray, Empire and the colonial connection with India. Great Pulteney Street in Bath (England) and Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur, founded in 1459, were two prominent outdoor scenes.

Another person who shares a passion for Thackeray is screenwriter Julian Fellowes who won an Academy Award for Best Original screenplay for Gosford Park. Fellowes’s versatility speaks volumes if you consider that he also wrote the screenplay for a P.G. Wodehouse book – Piccadilly Jim – which was made into a movie. Fellowes says, “Mira was absolutely brilliant in casting Reese – in having just one American with a flawless English accent rather than many Americans with British accents.”


But an Egyptian dance sequence by Becky and her friends which Mira Nair, said, 'Reese learnt to do in 12 -1/2 minutes', lacked rhythm and beat, and seemed contrived. Perhaps it lacked the boisterousness of a Bhangra because we were dealing with a subdued Victorian era. And, Mira seemed to have merely touched upon the Battle of Waterloo where Amelia lost her husband George Osborne. The third person in that love triangle is William Dobbin played by Welsh actor Rhys Ifans who costarred opposite Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts as Spike in Roger Michell’s comedy Notting Hill.

With nothing in their favour, and knowing he is fighting a losing battle - emotionally speaking - Rawdon says to Becky, “I know what we have to win, I’m just afraid of what we might lose. You’re taking favours from a tiger, Becky.” He was referring to the rich Marquess of Steyne. Becky’s reply: “I am not afraid.”

The dialogues are crisp and the man behind the camera, Declan Quinn has captured another memorable monument in celluloid with the décor, the brocades and ornate splendour of those times. While satisfying her “carnivalesque sensibilities” as she puts it, Mira captures the philosophy of the novel and recalls the yogic question Thackeray posed, “Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire or, having it, is satisfied?”

[A Focus Features presentation of a Tempesta Films/Granada Film Production, Vanity Fair is executive-produced by Jonathan Lynn. The executive producers are Howard Cohen and Pippa Cross. The producers are Janette Day, Donna Gigliotti, and Lydia Dean Pilcher. Based on the novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, the screenplay is by Matthew Faulk & Mark Skeet and Julian Fellowes. The director is Mira Nair. Vanity Fair has a running time of 140 minutes.]

[Raj S. Rangarajan is a New York based freelance writer. He covers trend stories on art, travel and lifestyles and reviews books, films and plays for media based in New York, California, Toronto, India and Australia.]

Light Summer Comedy: Harold and Kumar -- Film Review

Kal Penn (left) as “Kumar” and John Cho (right) as “Harold”

Raj S. Rangarajan

NEW YORK: If its summer, its movie time. For some reason the bar seems to be set lower for a comedy, more so if it is released in July-August. Perhaps, it has to do with the general warmth of the season and bonhomie among people - election year and the Iraq war notwithstanding.

A breezy film - Harold and Kumar go to White Castle (87 mins.) - is packed with frolic and fun and attempts to entertain and succeeds most of the time. Being a comic is specially tough in today’s times but two Asian comics – one of Korean origin (John Cho, born Seoul, Korea) and the other Kal Penn of Indian parentage (born Montclair, New Jersey) - perform admirably. All these two guys are looking for is instant gratification: a White Castle hamburger on a Friday evening (Note: not available everywhere, may not be available near you!) and the situations this pair of Harold (Cho) and Kumar (Penn) get into are bizzare, funny and wild: straight out of the escapist’s Hall of Fame, if there is one.

We have to pardon the occasional overacting by the two - a prerequisite for this genre of movie. The language is raunchy but unnecessarily saucy at times though one realizes that smart comebacks among the young constitute the lingua franca of that generation. Harold and Kumar crave for a hamburger known for its unique steam-grilled taste and the film narrates goings-on in one evening ranging from meeting a nocturnal mammal – the raccoon and a cheetah in separate incidents to a skymobile trip around town. You have the nerdy image of a hard-working Korean, Harold intent on completing his projects on time including ones that are dumped on him, and of Kumar, a doctor in the making who’s not particularly interested in medicine, but who, in a moment of introspection, realizes becoming a doctor is a good career move. Stage actor Errol Sitahal who appeared in the play Bhopal in Toronto last November plays Kumar’s father, another doctor at a hospital in New Jersey.

Cho (American Pie trilogy) and Penn (Malibu’s Most Wanted), who were named among Hollywood’s “hottest bachelors” by People Magazine recently are joined by Neil Patrick Harris (Tony Award for Broadway’s Assassins) as himself and Eddie Kaye Thomas (American Pie), a neighbor of the comics, another known face.

New Jersey’s toll collectors and cops get their share of exposure through cameos but the Garden state’s upholders of the law are shown in less flattering light. One would like to believe that the film’s creators were not getting back at the cops after a couple of racially-motivated incidents on the New Jersey turnpike. Suddenly, beating on cops seems to be fashionably par for the course.

A satirical cameo of accomplished stage and screen actor Harris that the audience will warm up to is Harris appearing as himself, when he steals Harold’s car with an open top and later appears with a topless female.

On a serious note, the writers attempt at exploring racial stereotypes while portraying the story as a tale of two friends forced to face reality by virtue of what they are in America today. Director Danny Leiner has managed to handle the race issue head on while giving it an aura of comic release through goofy Asian characters out for a late-night burger. Leiner says, “Harold and Kumar are sweet characters you want to pull for.” After the hit comedy Where’s My Car? Director Danny Leiner gives us H & K go to W.C. and writers Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg have done justice to a weak story.

It is rated “R” because of the sexual content and not because of crude humor that jars at times. Whether these scenes will actually help Harold & Kumar at the box office is anybody’s guess. But some may prefer to wait for the DVD since the movie is not that compelling. With South Asians now coming into their own and with more films of this genre such as American Pie succeeding, younger folk may indeed decide to see the flick.

If the Cho-Penn shtick is indeed accepted we could expect the duo write their own billing like Cheech and Chong or Abbott and Costello and even Laurel and Hardy did.

[Photo Credit: ©2004 Sophie Giraud/New Line Productions]

[Raj S. Rangarajan is a New York based freelance writer. He covers trend stories on art, travel and lifestyles and reviews books, films and plays for media based in New York, California, Toronto, India and Australia.]

IN CONVERSATION: Curry in New Jersey

RAJ S. RANGARAJAN talks to Mitra Kalita, whose Suburban Sahibs, a book about the different fortunes of three Indian migrant families in New Jersey, has just been published in India.

IF you thought IFS stood for Indian Foreign Service think again. IFS is Indian Food Smell, specially among Americans who allege the aroma of Indian cooking tends to be overpowering. FOB stands for fresh-off-boat and Dink stands for double income, no kids. These acronyms are some of the generational expressions used by 27-year-old first-time author S. Mitra Kalita whose Suburban Sahibs, a non-fiction effort with interesting stats, has just been published by Penguin, India.

Mitra Kalita, an education writer for The Washington Post, was born in New York to immigrants from Assam and after graduation did her MS from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Her book traces lives of three middle-class families — the Patels: Harish and Kapila; the Kotharis: Pradip (now Americanised as "Peter") and Nandini and the Sarmas: Sanku and Lipi, all of whom immigrated to the United States to pursue the "American dream". How these families' lives have turned out with concomitant pleasures and problems is the subject of Mitra's book. Two of the families moved to New Jersey more than 30 years ago, the third came here a few years ago on H-1B visas.

"We endured little blatant racism but plenty of questions about `what kind' of Indian we were," says Mitra. "What tribe?" one teacher asked. Kalita talks nostalgically about her early days: As an immigrant I became two Mitras: the one at home spoke Assamese, ate with her little hands and slept tucked between two parents in a king-size bed. One spoke in a thick Long Island accent, dreamed of a family past and vacillated between the black Cabbage Patch Kid and the white one, settling on the latter."

Passionate about her association with New Jersey, the Garden State, where between 1990 and 2000 the state's Indian population grew more than 100 per cent from 79,400 to 169,180, Mitra says, the first influx of Indian immigrants arrived as a result of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 which gave almost every country a quota of 20,000 immigrants per year.

Indians initially settled in Jackson Heights (some call it lightheartedly "Jaikishenagar") and Flushing, New York and over the past 10 to 15 years, people settled around Central New Jersey which houses one of the largest communities of South Asians in the U.S. "In Edison neighbourhoods, around dinnertime the smell of curries and cardamom wafts over freshly manicured lawns," where well-known names such as Ford, Revlon, American Can, Johnson & Johnson have a major presence. An estimated 1.7 million Indians are legal immigrants of the U.S.

Thirty years ago, Indian groceries and sari shops were few and far between. Today, Oak Tree Road in Iselin, NJ, is a "little India" where even mainstream American supermarkets stock veggies that Indians favour. An eloquent statistic says all: "The Yellow Pages for both Edison and Woodbridge (now) have more Patels than Smiths and more Shahs than Joneses." Interestingly, according to a conservative think tank, only three percent of Indian arrivals lack a high school education, and about 75 percent of Indian immigrants who work in the U.S. are college graduates compared to about a third of the U.S. population overall.

Of the three families, one never made it and continues to struggle. There are indeed many untold stories or those waiting to be told, of NRIs in a bind, who live from month to month, after decades here. Many face problems like their brethren they left behind in India. Media stories tend to talk only of Indian-American successes but Mitra refers to a certain economically-deprived NRI segment which, for fear of shame and ridicule, will not go back to India, whatever the frustrations, insults and lack of respect they are heir to.

To a question if Indian-Americans in other parts of America or Canada can relate to her book, the former Rutgers student declares, "New Jersey is unique in that it is not in a urban setting and the book has lessons that are universal to other states or counties with large expatriate communities." On the subject of Indian kids raised here, Mitra says, "it was easy to talk with them, hard to write about. I feel protective of these young people but also have an obligation to my reader to be honest." Mitra hopes that her book will resonate across cultures, specially among non-Indians.

While Mitra has produced an excellent dossier on Indians in New Jersey, I wish she had also included more on NRIs who live in other parts of the country such as Jackson Heights, NY or on the numerous NRIs on H-1B visas in California.

Politicians generally like to talk of the American dream. Would the H-1B visa or Outsourcing become a bone of contention this election year for Indian applicants? You bet. The race to replace George W. Bush as president of the U.S. is heating up (general elections on November 2, 2004). Media reports regularly talk of the flight of jobs to countries such as India and China where outsourcing is the new mantra among multinationals.

With more and more Indian-Americans aspiring to join the legislative class by contesting elections here and with some victors in the Garden State, "Namaste" and "Jai Hind" will become staples for sure-fire vote-getting, specially if one wishes to hold public office in Middlesex County, New Jersey, concludes Mitra.

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