“Driving, driving, driving. Our work, a little bit difficult. Driving, a little bit tiring,” Sastry said as he steered his sky-blue BMW — license plate PRIEST-B — around the Capital Beltway from his Ashburn home to the Ellicott City housewarming, a ceremony considered most auspicious if performed before sunrise. “But this is a respected thing,” he said.

Freelance priests are bountiful in India, but just seven serve one of the Washington region’s largest ethnic communities. Census data from 2006 indicate that 105,000 Indians live in the area, about 60 percent of whom are immigrants; most have settled in Fairfax, Loudoun, Montgomery and Howard counties. To those who regularly call upon them, Sastry and his counterparts become trusted family priests, akin to family doctors or accountants. [link]

Had I only known this, I could have avoided an entire trip to India to get married for the second time (to the same person). Fly Mr. Sastry down, perform the ceremony and voila! We are married the Hindu way. We are happy to have avoided wedding-related trauma drama hungama costs. The ever-increasing-in-religiousness elders are happy since we are officially married the Hindu way. And Mr. Sastry is happy with anything we pay him. So I would have only given him $1 + expenses (I’m Ahmedabadi, after all). Everybody’s happy.

Sastry declined to discuss his fees, saying the payment is up to the devotees

My “suggested fee” wouldn’t cut it. Especially since this priest takes his kids to Disneyworld!

Clients said they typically pay $150 to $200 for a ritual of a few hours. They also pay his expenses, including mileage — “IRS rate,” he said, chuckling. It is enough for a tidy townhouse and a yearly vacation with his wife and two sons, 11-year-old Vignesh and 8-year-old Pavan. Last year, they hit Disney World.

Disneyworld? What kind of a Hindu are you, Mr. Sastry? You should – at the very least – take your kids here. If they’re lucky they’ll get to spot B-list actors in blue paint. And strings are $2 per. I kid, of course. Mr. Sastry can take his kids any where he damn well pleases. Or where they damn well please. Either way.

At any rate though, the one thing that bothers me about this is the license plate. “PRIEST B”? WTF? Something creative would be good. Like say, “SWAHA MAN” or “PUNDIZIT”. What say?

Now, this does not look like a swimwear shoot to me. Look where his right hand is, for crissake! Looking closer (purely intellectual interest, mind you), I read the caption, and saw that there was a URL typed in there, without a link – theindianplayboy.com. With the pursuit of knowledge in mind, armed only with my research background, I soldiered on. I manually (what dedication!) cut-pasted the link into my address bar and…

The amazing story of a Corporate Finance Executive with a passion for Film Making who had had the guts to risk it all by making a quality erotic film in Los Angeles! Now on DVD with an embedded E-Book that answers all your questions and provides you with all the juicy in side information that you have always wanted to know!

…

It is both an interesting Biography and a “How to shoot a porn/erotic film” combo. Nothing comes close to it. [link]

Ok, sardonic quips about the TOI(let) aside (these pics are categorized under “Foreign Fashion Show”) – what the hell? A desi making a movie about the making of a porno? Why doesn’t he just make a porn? Or maybe he already has. Who is this character?

Richard Menon who has previously directed “Miss 2” a film on model aviation that made it to the New York International Film Festival 2004 and an adult film under the Ecstasyvision Inc banner conceived the idea of “The Indian Playboy: Anatomy of a Porn Film” Documentary Film + Book. Since he is the subject of the film, he decided to entrust Steve Clack/DP with the Directorial Assistance. [link]

Richard Menon (48) hails from Trichur, the cultural capital of Kerala State, India. He graduated from the University of Calicut in 1979 and … had his formal film production training at the famous Hollywood Film Institute. [link]

A mallu from Trichur, based in Jersey City, going to LA not just to make porn films (mind it!), but also documentaries on the making of porn films. Hmm. Several comments are flying through my mind right now, but I think the humour intrinsic to that thought is enough. Hell, the concept is a movie in and of itself (starring Johnny Lever). It suffices to say that I’m sure glad he entrusted Steve Clack with directorial assistance, because I’d definitely be distracted when shooting something like that. Unless, of course, it was at gunpoint or if I was doing it out of purely intellectual interest.

Now, it’s back to my research for me…

Bookstores are filled with titles like “Extreme Indian Arithmetic Drills” and “The Unknown Secrets of the Indians.” Newspapers carry reports of Indian children memorizing multiplication tables far beyond nine times nine, the standard for young elementary students in Japan.

And Japan’s few Indian international schools are reporting a surge in applications from Japanese families.

At the Little Angels English Academy & International Kindergarten, the textbooks are from India, most of the teachers are South Asian, and classroom posters depict animals out of Indian tales. The kindergarten students even color maps of India in the green and saffron of its flag.

Little Angels is located in this Tokyo suburb, where only one of its 45 students is Indian. Most are Japanese. [link]

Wow. Never thought I would thank my sixth standard (that’s “sixth grade” in Americanese) class teacher, the late Mrs. Sachdev, but thank you, Mrs. Sachdev for teaching me to go beyond nine times nine. I am now cool in Japan.

The first wave of slicing up services work and sending it abroad has been all about business operations. Computer programming, call centers, product design and back-office jobs like accounting and billing have to some degree migrated abroad, mainly to India. The Internet, of course, makes it possible, while lower wages in developing nations make outsourcing attractive to corporate America.

The second wave, according to some entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and offshoring veterans, will be the globalization of consumer services. People like Ms. Yamaki and Mr. Tham, they predict, are the early customers in a market that will one day include millions of households in the United States and other nations. [link]

In 2006, Mr. Patel lost in the seventh round thanks to just such a word, eremacausis (“gradual oxidation of organic matter from exposure to air and moisture”).

The word sounds like it should come from the Greek eremos (suggesting solitude) or aero (for air). In fact, it is the only word in Webster’s to come from the Greek erema, meaning “gently”.

Mr. Patel crashed out of the competition with a-e-r-o-m-o-c-a-u-s-i-s. This year [2007] he blew his last chance to win a title over clevis (a U-shaped piece of iron). He panicked over the information that its roots were “probably Scandinavian” and opted for c-l-e-v-i-c-e. The ESPN commentators were stunned. [link]

Well, the other day, I was having a coffee at Ritual Coffee Roasters down in the Mission (here in San Francisco). It’s one of the best coffees in town, as I’ve blogged earlier. So I walk into the restroom, and on the paper towel dispenser, I see:

I wasn’t sure initially, but that is Appu – the 1982 Asian Games mascot. I double-checked on two sites. Now, what the hell is a sticker of the 1982 Asian Games doing in a coffeeshop in San Francisco, 25 years later? That’s a question to ponder. Take a closer look:

Well, whoever put that there, for whatever reason, it definitely got my attention. And now, you’re probably wondering what that comic says on the dispenser. Well, I anticipated that, so I got a close-up of it:

Not really very interesting. Unless you’re in art school and/or an artist having a mid-life crisis. I’ll tell you what was interesting, though: The patterns the barista made on our coffees. Check them out:

Nice, no? The second one looks like a garlic or a heart, depending on where you are in life…

… the air is heavy with the smell of gasoline and flowers, you are approached by women begging for money and food. Men shout invitations to enter their carpet shops or purchase wares…

…[Y]ou enter a courtyard where an old man sits wearing a black security uniform. He speaks no English … [and] points toward a flight of wood stairs… At the top, a door is opened by a barefoot woman in a scarlet sari. Behind her is an art gallery as white and sleek as any space in Chelsea.

These contradictions do not arise from any calculated exoticism. This is simply the new India. [link]

Now that’s a line and a half. We are like this only, and all that. The money quote comes from Usha Mirchandani, who also happens to be a close family friend.

“It isn’t as if we are not aware of what is happening in New York or Berlin or in China,” the dealer Usha Mirchandani said in an interview at the gallery. “It is just that we find ourselves in a new position, and we must find our own way.

“We are an old civilization. We have untold treasures. But what has happened here in the last year and a half has changed things, with the economy booming and so much art being sold and the prices just going off the graph.” [link]

True enough. The article goes on to talk about skyrocketing art prices, growing art galleries and all that good stuff. A lot of the money, it seems, is coming from the NRI’s.

Money pouring into the art world from nonresident Indians who have made their fortunes in the United States and Europe, along with the racing engine of India?s $4 trillion economy, has enabled artists to travel abroad far more often than they did before. [link]

But not everything is rosy. There is trouble in paradise…

Nikhil Chopra, a young performance artist in Mumbai, said: “I can’t believe we’re a country of a billion people that doesn’t have more than a couple of decent art schools, no contemporary art museum, no real funding, no group of trained curators fluent in contemporary art, no art criticism in the newspapers, just one serious art magazine, Art India, and only a few major collectors of contemporary work. In other words, no real infrastructure at all.” [link]

Well, there we have the “i” word again. It seems to be on everybody’s mind. Unfortunately, methinks that any sort of serious public infrastructure for supporting art is going to be the last recipient of our thriving economy. It’s only after the 40% or so of our below-poverty population gets above it, and enough people are wealthy enough to be able to enjoy art, that there will be any kind of mass movement to support artists. Of course, there’s a fair amount of support coming in from the private sector, and for better or worse, that’s how it’s going to be for a while.

Was in Los Angeles for the weekend, and it’s mandatory to lunch at Pioneer Blvd in Artesia, and raid the well-stocked cupboards of Surati Farsan Mart after that. For the uninitiated, that’s where LA’s ‘Little India’ is located.

So, after doing the rounds, we start walking back to car. While waiting for the signal, I glance down into the gutter and lo and behold, I see the ultimate Indian seal of authenticity – paan ki thuk (or paan spit)!

I should probably be decrying the way desis pollute their adopted homeland, or how they have no civic sense. But it’s been way too long since I went home, and it’s just too goddamn nostalgic to see paan thuk. So I’m just going to say the hell with it, and enjoy the view.

As Beijing?s influence in Asia and around the world has grown, their common interests have forced Tokyo and New Delhi to begin warming their historically chilly relationship and to start forging closer economic ties. ?The key issue facing the whole region is how to accommodate the rise of China,? said Suman Bery, the director general of the National Council of Applied Economic Research, a New Delhi research group. Indian economists estimate that Japanese investment in India will reach $5.5 billion by 2011, compared with just $515 million in the 2006 fiscal year. [link]

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They’re made to be in the style of Japanese Anime and I was intrigued, so I did a little bit of research (well ok, I just Googled ‘ramayana anime‘) and found that they were made in Japan in collaboration with India, in the early 90′s.

Directed by Yugo Sako and Krishna Shah, this adaptation of the legend combines the techniques of the Japanese school of animation called Manga, and those of Indian classical painting which have been updated by Ram Mohan, the father of Indian animation. [link]

They’ve definitely got a fair amount of action and entertainment. And several of the battles I saw involved at least one sword. This should explain that:

Rama and Lakshmana look rather like Samurai warriors, and the action sequences are graced by swordfights based on the Japanese kenjutsu tradition, but the characters deliver their speeches in a style reminiscent of the acting tradition in Indian folk theater, though with a certain Manga twist. [link]

Turns out the feature is called Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama and the Hindi version is voiced by (among others) Om Puri and Amrish Puri. They weren’t credited on the IMDb page, but I recognized their voices. Additionally, James Earl Jones does the narration in the English version – he’s credited on there. Here’s another clip (also in Hindi, but with subtitles) that has some more action than the previous one:

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There are some more clips available to watch, uploaded by user ‘manofsan‘. And the DVD can be bought on Amazon, if you’re interested. Although some of the subtleties and intricacies from the original stories are lost in the making of the cartoon, it makes for some fun viewing for kids, and the kid inside you.