Disshadow'd livery

An even lighter shade of Shilpa

Indian American author Sujit Saraf published Big Brother: a tale of two white women back in January, when Jade Goody's poppadom debacle was at its height:

Indian racism is quite uncomplicated. Jade’s abhorrence of foreign races includes - in addition to skin colour - spicy chicken, smelly onions, odd accents and unpronounceable names. By contrast, Indian racism is elemental: as nature abhors a vacuum, so India abhors dark skin."

I don't believe that the article has lost any of its relevance, or indeed its dark humour, in the intervening period.

Lashes of Ramayanimation

A still from Nina Paley's Sita Sings the Blues

I came across this series of flash animations by Nina Paley today on Google Video and had to post a link to them.

The New York-based animator is producing a musical adaptation of the Ramayana from Sita's perspective, featuring the late 20s jazz songs of Annette Hanshaw and vivid, sharply-drawn figures.

Hanshaw's surviving-men soundtrack and the cartoon's Betty Boop-meets-Samurai Jack visual style is shockingly fitting for telling the ancient tale of princess-napping and monkey-god shenanigans. A revelation!

Brokeback Bollywood

An amusing Brokeback Mountain takeoff with a serious message can be downloaded here (~22Mb mpeg).

Whenever my lover touches me

Like the algae on the well
from which the townsfolk drink,
my paleness goes away
whenever my lover touches me.
And whenever he leaves
it spreads over again.

(translation of an ancient Tamil poem from Kuruntokai, "Anthology of 400 Short Poems on Love")