Monthly Archive for June, 2005

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Handy Ghandhi

Published on June 20, 2005 in Comedy, India and Racism. 10 Comments

Gandhiji on the train . The racist ticket checker asks him for id. Gandhi turns around and sings this jingle.

I spent my time adding spice and flavor
From family recipes back home in India
I like to introduce you now in South Africa
So come and try today
Handy Ghandi is my name
Handy Ghandi
ooh Handy Ghandi
Handy Ghandi great curries no worries

Enough of fooling around. Handy Ghandi is the name of an Australian chain that sells Indian food (I first read about it on Ranajit’s blog

The irony of it all.

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Open Water—-the Review

Published on June 20, 2005 in Reviews. 2 Comments

I saw “Open Water” over the weekend.

The premise of the story: An urban American couple, out on vacation, go for a scuba diving expedition in a tourist boat. There, due to some reprehensible stupidity on the part of the guides, they are left stranded in the middle of the ocean. What follows is a grim battle to survive the rolling sea, the surrounding sharks and the inevitable rising sense of panic that engulfs them both.

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Sand Niggers

Published on June 19, 2005 in Racism and Society. 77 Comments

Reading Sunil Laxman’s rather chilling brush with racist violence got me thinking about similar experiences I have had during my 6 years of life in the US. Fortunately, no bottles have been thrown at me and none of the bad experiences I have had were violent in nature.

Being singled out because of the color of your skin is such a common experience that you become inured to it. Smiles of shopkeepers vanish mysteriously when they see my brown skin, aloofness enters the voice of the grocery store clerk, the seat adjacent to me in a bus is often the last place to be filled up (which is a good thing incidentally). Not for a moment I am saying that I have never encountered smiling faces or a friendly “Hello”————far from that. But there have been quite a few times I have seen people’s attitudes change the moment they have had to deal with brown skinned people.

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Is This The Begiining of The End ?

Published on June 18, 2005 in Cricket. 2 Comments

Is this the beginning of the end of the Aussie raj? A defeat to Bangladesh—-who had been soundly whipped by the English match after match for the last month.

Ho boy ! Now I am talking crap. As Azhar would say:” The boys did not play well.” As Sourav would say:” A bad day at the office”. And the Australians have accrued enough days of sheer brilliance to deserve a few days of mediocrity.

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A Brief History of the Vulgar Song

Published on June 18, 2005 in Bollywood, Comedy, India, Media and Pop Culture. 46 Comments

This was originally posted in my orkut community “Bollywood Bakwas”. (2004)

“Vulgar” Hindi movie songs have a long and illustrious history which I shall not attempt to document in its entirety here. But for people who do not merely seek to be tittilated and also desire some background, here is my attempt to document the “rise” of the double-meaning song in a succint fashion.

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