04.10 badi macchi, the whale shark

i just watched an incredible film called sharkwater last night...

the shark trade is a scary, scary thing. in the film, surrounded by sharks who nuzzle up to him like happy dogs, torontonian rob stewart, director of the film, reveals the shocking reality. only 5 deaths each year are attributed to sharks. ten times that are attributed to elephants. in fact, sharks aren't interested in eating people, they predate dinosaurs. they are docile and highly intelligent creatures possessing more senses than humans do. the oldest living predator on earth, and the most important predator in the sea, sharks are critical to the regulation of plankton, responsible for 70% of the earth's oxygen production.

the scary truth? only 10% of the earth's sharks remain. and they are in danger.

why?

largely due to the chinese delicacy, shark fin soup. i compare the soup to diamonds, a totally fabled luxury. falsely believed to contain healing powers, shark fins (and other parts) sell for a ridiculously inflated price. the soup sells for $200 per bowl, even though the fins have no taste whatsoever. chicken and pork are the flavouring agents. sharks are hunted around the world for their fins, a billion dollar industry, and a deathwish for anyone wanting to make a film exposing it.

i did a bit of digging and found that in india, shark liver oils are being used to preserve boats.

i found this good article about another film made about the shark trade - in india. the article is entitled, of sharks and bigger sharks, about mike pandey's film, shores of silence, nominated for the green oscar at the wildscreen 2000 festival:

The gut-wrenching film documents the slaughter and trade of whale sharks on the Western coast of India. And Mr Pandey is the first Indian film-maker ever to focus on a large marine species. ``The film which was shot under extreme conditions took almost three years to complete and aims towards creating policies to support a ban on the killing and trade of whale sharks in India as well as finding sustainable alternatives for the fishermen,'' says Mr Pandey.

...as a 10-year-old boy he had sailed from Africa to India by ship and throughout the voyage he was mesmerised by huge creatures that swam alongside the ship. ``Now nearly 40 years later, while shooting a film on coastal India in Gujarat, the memory of those creatures urged me to look for them again. I travelled all along the Gujarat coast asking fishermen if they knew of the badi machhi, the whale shark.''

But what Mr Pandey and his crew saw made them shrink in horror. And what started as a feel-good film on these gentle giants would turn out to be a tale of blood and gore. Hundreds of these sea giants are butchered on the shores of Western India every year. There is a great demand for shark meat and fins in South Asia. The oil from their livers is used to waterproof boats. Shaken by the senseless killings, Mr Pandey decided to make a feature film on these creatures. As the crew filmed in the area and met local people, the magnitude of the problem became clear.

Though the prime concern of Mr Pandey and his crew was the conservation of the shark, they saw a different aspect of the dilemma that ran deep into other issues concerning mainly the socio-economic status of fishing communities.

Shores of Silence makes an impassioned plea for the setting up of a whale shark sanctuary. Given the frequent sightings on the Gujarat coast, these waters are of international significance and declaring them as a sanctuary would help protect this vulnerable species. Fishermen could augment their income by doubling up as tourist guides for visitors eager for a shark sighting.

Mr Pandey is in his elements when he talks about what should be done to save whale sharks from perishing at the hands of mankind. Says he, ``The ocean is relatively a new horizon for humanity. Management of marine resources at this point is critical to avoid abusing what mistakenly appears to be a limitless resource zone.'' ``Man,'' he says, ``has interfered with nature's delicate balance. We have ruptured the system and if it continues, we may pay the price with our own extinction.''

copyright © 2001 indian express newspapers (bombay) ltd.

original article here

sharkwater is in theatres now. go watch it.

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04.08 young, gifted and brown 5.0

for those who don't know, russell now has a dvd called outsourced.

he has moved to america [sniff], performing sold out shows in major cities. canada wouldn't give him the break he needed though he rose to become the top canadian comedian over 15 years... he is coming home though! his sold-out canadian homecoming tour kicks off this spring. missed toronto tickets, but i'm hoping to see him in montreal july 20...

04.08 young, gifted and brown 4.0

his accents slay me!

these from the african continent!

russell peters on "!xobile":


russell peters on south africa, indian slaves:

04.08 young, gifted and brown 3.0

i've officially fallen from my chair.

check out russell peters's 'tap sum bong':

04.08 young, gifted and brown 2.0

more russell peters
apparently i haven't had enough of this guy!

russell on the english accent:

04.07 young, gifted and brown

so i've been a bit down lately...

i know. i'm me. i'm not supposed to be down. i'm supposed to be the happy bouncing boundless me. but yeah. even i get down sometimes. and if it was one problem, no sweat. but there are four major problems and without getting into details, let's just say they are all lingering, all out of my personal control.

so. today i took matters into my own hands. after all, my happiness is my responsibility, right! nobody is gonna make me happy but me. so i pulled up my laptop. i logged onto youtube. [yes i am a bit addicted to youtube!] and in the 'search' box, i typed in two words: russell peters

and bingo!

in seconds i was distracted. laughing so hard my stomach muscles were hurting. love this guy. and i love that he's young, gifted and brown.

russell on the indian accent. watch it now:

03.30 history of the world

sometimes i scour the internet for information about weird things. before i popped a dvd into my laptop, i randomly googled "condensed india history" and came up with A Condensed History of Everything.

876 CE: Some Indian invents the ZERO, making math homework even more difficult and frustrating. At this point in time, Christian Europe is home to the most degraded, least advanced, most backwards-ass civilizations on the planet.

i had no idea an indian invented the zero. or that the zero was that old!

....and now i'm thinking to myself: i never did find the condensed history of india.

03.25 from mississippi masala to new york namesake

i just came from watching mira nair's the namesake.

if her name sounds familiar to you, it should. she is the director of the highly popular films salaam bombay, mississippi masala, and more recently, monsoon wedding.

i had forgotten how visually stunning that film was. tonight was no different. nair blended incredible cinematography with a solid cast, a very realistic - and all too relate-able - storyline, and a brilliant soundtrack courtesy of none other than the man himself, nitin sawhney.

the namesake is the story of a young newly wed indian couple starting life in new york together, having two children who grow up as new yorkers, who in turn learn about their parents' culture as non resident indians. i was drawn into the story of their son gogol (also known as nikhil), who learns so much about his parents after a visit to india and the major life events that follow.

i have to say that the lead female in the film, ashima (played by tabu), was outstanding. she reminded me of my own mother. a certain type of indian woman has this unwavering grace, a type of elegance that transcends time and place. my mom has that same quality and it made me appreciate the film even more.

go see it. trailer:

03.18 the bates debate

i've been really really bad.

haven't done my eye exercises in more than a week, due to the same old same old thing: too busy, rushing around, don't have time etc. well. that's going to stop right now!!

i've been talking about the excercises called the "bates method" (discovered by william bates), which have make a remarkable impact on my vision and on that of thousands of people before me.

understandably, the scientific community cannot stand this. the entire vision care industry is at stake, including optometrists, glasses manufacturers, contact lens manufacturers, and the laser eye surgeons. all of these are very lucrative businesses. if what bates has discovered catches on, depite living proof like me, who have improved their eyesight past what anyone could imagine, the industries that cater to corrective eyewear will plummet.

i've found bates challenged all over the place, including this wiki entry.

two more of my friends have just finished their stay at the school for perfect eyesight in pondicherry and have also had incredible success in just a week of following very simple instructions twice a day. it does take some dedication but it works. hell even for me with me semi-dead-ication.

03.16 books on the brownside... back!

i've been doing some reading and am resurrecting "books on the brownside", a commentary i used to write on indian literature. although i think i only had about three entries...

so here's the fourth!

the latest i've read is arundhati roy's the god of small things - a brilliant novel that takes place in ayemenem, a village in the backwaters close to kottayam and alleppey, where i stayed in kerala over the holidays.

roy is a bit of a genius.

her writing style is very dense, making the reading a bit distracting, but through the story filled with drama, class struggle, sex, murder, and a lot of the local language of kerala, malayam, she is able to provide the reader with historical, social, economic and political context of the area. this was a welcome read as it helped me understand kerala's communist past, the noticeable absence of homeless in alleppey, and the contrasting high suicide and literacy rates (as commented on in god's own country).

it's a classic micro-macro story, where the struggles and stories of three generations of the Ipe family are direct results of the framework of the social structures in which they are forced to live. it describes caste clash mainly through "love laws": who can be loved, and how, and how much.

the thing i didn't like was that roy kept the deep dark secret until the end. but her style and descriptiveness kept me going. it's a tragedy, yet a major comment on feminism and colonialism. india has its own problems, but the solutions have to come from the inside, not from colonialisation, indian self-hatred, and india's ridiculous love and unconditional acceptance of the west.

i totally identified with ammu and rahel, the two central women characters. they refused to accept the oppression that was served to them, and as indian women, acted contrary to society's expectations, of course bringing on the harsh but expected punishments from their oppressors!

after completing the novel, i felt a bit drained and so the geek that i am, i read this great dissertation on the book from the university of utrecht. it explores colonialism, feminism, politics and the literary style of the book. of particular interest were pages 7, 11, 13... despite a few flaws, i highly recommend it. only of course, after reading the book itself.

goes well with keralan tea, nitin sawhney and a long hug afterwards...

four stars
handy dandy study guide

03.01 bollywood dance craze

last night some high school students from lawrence park high put on a benefit for the NGO i work for. it was a dance night called "urban", featuring dance and music from urban centres around the world. among these were nairobi, paris, and yes... mumbai.

the indian act was near the end of the night. my curiosity was piqued when i caught a glimpse of lycra-clad girls with brightly coloured sequins and jingling bells giggling on their way backstage.

well it was a bolly-hit.

500 teenagers and lucky chaperoning parents in the uptown toronto crowd screamed and shouted and moved their bhangra-shoulders to the bolly beat. the girls on stage were even incorporated the indian head wiggle (ihw) at one point! the kids went wild. the parents went wilder. it was an eye opener for me. i had no idea that bollywoood dancing was that popular. it always seemed so cheesy to me: the bollywood dance numbers on saturday morning television hindi films was (is?) as required as a morning chai. i cringe and laugh watching lovers dancing around in the park, raising one eyebrow at one another and coyly hiding their faces with sari silks. [oh, and the 'let's get our faces as close together as we can without actually kissing - the hallmark of the bolly dance sequence]. it was either that or the sound of fake taamashaas (slaps) and punches in the compulsory bolly-brawl scene.

funny enough the bolly dance thing really is a bit of a craze. today i was on BBC and came across this "in pictures" section... it's about bollywood dancing catching on like wildfire in yorkshire, uk. who knew it would get so hot?

01.15 worlds apart

i have neglected my ipod in india.

there were so many fascinating sounds that kept me alert, alive, aware.. i didn't need the ipod. actually i didn't want it.

coming back to toronto was not easy. i should mention that my father, in tarzan style, sprained his knee jumping from a wall a couple of days ago. i know: he's almost sixty; what is he doing jumping. i know. i know. but boys will be boys. so he jumps. sprains his knee and because of an old soccer injury the thing is now the size of my head. seriously.

does he go to a clinic? a doctor? a healer? um. no. would tarzan go to a healer? no. this is the thing about boys. i know they say that women are irrational (they even coined the word "hysterical") , but when it comes to ego, men's ability to think logically evaporates. and they are left with a cantaloupe for a knee, hobbling in and out of cabs to get last minute stuff done...

at the mumbai airport, i order him a wheelchair. he doesn't realise it but that wheelchair man is coming for him. that's his wheelchair. he scowls. looks at me. i grab his camera bag and lead him into the chair by the elbow. once seated, he shrinks to the size of me. i suddenly feel a pang of empathy for him. he's getting old. my mom, on the other hand is radiant.

i order a roomy seat for my father. the flight is long. and delayed. at heathrow, there is no wheelchair ready and we have 1 hour to connect. near-impossible with security checks. somehow, we and our luggage make the connection. once in the plane i finally pull out my ipod and float into sweet oblivion.

reality check comes at toronto pearson international arrivals. it's 1am. after collecting our immense baggages, i head over to my father and his wheelchair attendant is in a heated discussion with her coworker about a third coworker. i hear the words "fuck" and "bitch" and think to myself... so this is what reverse culture shock is all about. after waiting for about a minute while the two gossip like teenagers i ask the woman if i can take my father. her eyes bulge in reaction, as though i grabbed her boob on a packed mumbai train or something.

i smile.

...it is possible to recognize anger in this world, to understand its sources, without getting angered yourself...

still smiling i pull an ipod bud from my pocket and put it in my left ear.
i pat her on the shoulder and with a little indian head wiggle turn toward the exit, "chalo!".

and of course she follows.

01.14 poverty

poverty taught me a lot in india. i have not experienced ultra-poverty first-hand but before leaving for india i heard a lot about it. i was actually afraid of how it would affect me. i was constantly warned about beggars and touts. people complained about them nonstop, saying how they are everywhere, persistent, annoying. bad for your peace of mind.

question: if you were utterly broke, hungry, with only the clothes on your back and no one to turn to, would you ask for help, or would you curl up into a ball and die from pride?

hmmm?

exactly. that's the spirit that makes me love india so much.

a quick word on dukaans...
i've been to indian shopping malls and large westernised department stores. miserable places. nobody cares whether you buy something or not. there are too many staff and if you ask for something, they might pause to look at you. and then continue talking among themselves. juxtapose this with the man whose family depends on what he sells that day. if he sells nothing, his kids go hungry.

i'd support him over a department store. any day.

we should stop judging. people end up in situations. some enter into poverty. so many are born into it. i'm just gonna say this: in india you will get asked for stuff. you may even get tricked. you will use your common sense. buy stuff if you want it. don't buy stuff if you don't want it. look at what's going on around you. but do not complain about how annoying people are because i will have no sympathy for your privileged ass!

try giving away your last rupee to the lady who lives on the sidewalk. it's a great feeling. and it will mean more to her than it does to you.

ok enough rant. check out these kids. we gave them a bag of pakoras and money to buy milk. of course, they kept asking for more:) whether or not they "scored", it really doesn't matter...

01.12 love

pyaar, mohabbat, ishq... all mean the same thing. love.

i was just thinking about the man of my dreams.. and must comment on expressions of love in india.

in pondicherry, over lunch with three friends, vik, hari and patrick, this topic came up. they were annoyed at the "hassles" that single female travellers (sfts) in india inevitably had to deal with. it wasn't obvious any time i was hanging with my parents or inside hotels or going around with drivers. i've been pretty lucky. but there were moments...

tibetan bowl massage, my lady?
i had asked raja, a lousy squat pondi shopkeeper, about some tibetan bowls i saw in his shop... a trained healer, raja decided to "show and tell" me their powers with an impromptu tibetan vibrating bowl massage in the store. cool. at first. but in minutes, good vibrations turned into a pervy groping session à la pepe le pew. just to be clear: he was groping me, not the other way around.

the risky business of mumbai trains...
rather than a nice, neat "grope and run" on the street, today i was full-up fondled in a man-packed mumbai train. i felt fingers mashing up my left boob, and noticed a dude's left hand, which he had snuck across his chest, peeking from behind his right bicep, rubbing me up. sensing the laser rays from my pupils burning a hole in his knuckle, he quickly removed his hand.

excuse me, i say to the guy standing on my left
silence.
EXCUSE ME - my face right in his. everyone is looking at me. silence.
PLEASE LOOK AT ME WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU. I SAW YOU TOUCHING ME.
his guilty eyes still avoid me. two other dudes claim his innocence: he can't touch you with that bag in his right hand. they continue campaigning after i explain he's got two haath and one was just on me. some old man is now yelling at the dude. bingo. yes. now i get it. sad. but true: this is what women-only sections are for. swelling with anger at this fact, and this guy's cowardice, i finally boom in his ear:
DON'T. TOUCH. ME. i consider snapping his photo right there but suddenly feel sorry for him. probably never seen a girl like me this close up in his life.

wheel you maarrry me?
in india you will get asked for your hand. that's just how it goes. even lovely old aruna from the school for perfect eyesight had been chatting to me all week, and finally asked me my last day whether i was single, would i marry a man in india, and was i ready to get married... but by far the funniest marriage proposal was on the street yesterday in bandra: "maadaam... yoo soo beoootifool, moowie shtaaar! are yoo maaaried? i will like to maaarry yoo!" he skipped alongside me as i walked, telling me he'd do anything i ask, but didn't leave me alone when i asked him to.

it's a bit of a shame, because i write all of this off, but i can see how an sft - especially western women - would get really mad. it's an adjustment coming from a society where people don't even look at each other walking down the street to a place where everyone and everything is out there, on display, and up for grabs. boobs included.

ranjith, a really decent, stand-up guy in pondi had warned me about mumbai. i remember him shaking his head, and telling me how embarrased he was. that this kind of behaviour from some indian men gives all indian men a bad reputation. sadly, he's right.

but that's india for you. wherever you turn, in a park, train, museum, peeking at you like in a bollywood flick from behind a tree, eyes burning through your salwaar, there it is: love...

01.12 floating friday

this evening we saw the floating wonder... the ali haji durga.

the mosque was built in honour of the sufi saint haji ali, a big-time merchant. he had renounced his wealth and material life in favour of his devotion to god and his meditation. the legend says that he died during a pilgrimmage to mecca and that his casket somehow floated back to this shore, at the spot where the durga is today.

the durga includes his tomb and a mosque. the whole complex is built 500 metres from the shore so you have to walk along a narrow path to reach it. today it's fine to cross because it's low tide, but during monsoon season, and high tide the walkway is completely submerged, so the durga appears to be floating away.

01.12 mmm... leafy greens

so i have a slight addiction.


i've been sneaking to the paan-wallas every day (sometimes more than once a day). i only do it when no one's looking... i guess that's a bad sign, huh?

i don't know what it is. they are just so good and so fun to eat. traditionally eaten by high-society, paan are the things that everyone can eat when out at night, after dinner at the paan-wallas. i've tried to give them to friends back in toronto and all have had the same response... they couldn't handle it! some people described it to chewing a mouthful of candied insense. yes it's true, when you eat the stuff you can feel the aroma of it swirling in your mouth and out through your nostrils. very much an acquired taste. they taste the exact same here as they do back in toronto's little india. but back in toronto i didn't have a paan habit.

paan is the indian after dinner mint... it's chewed to give you an aromatic, refreshing taste, to sweeten your mouth and breath. it's made from the betel leaf, onto which the paan-wallah spreads some syruppy lime paste, then covers with coconut shavings, dollops of sweet cherry paste, rose paste and sprinkles with little fennel seeds, anise seeds, tiny little red candies and some other miscellaneous spices and stuff. i love watching as the paan-walla's dextrous fingers wrap the leaf with all this inside into a little triangle and bam! you got paan.

my mouth is watering just thinking about them... and i've already had one today.

the thing that makes paan more illicit is the traditional method - most people have paan with betel nut shavings. some say it's not betel nut but another related seed. both are really hard rock-like things. some, like my great-grandmother, also take their paan with chewing tobacco, which they spit out. actually i think she opted for just the chewing tobacco alone, without the paan! but that dark, lovely, sweet and heavy aroma....mmmmm!

personally i prefer 'virgin' or sweet paan - what is called 'mitha' paan. it's supposed to provide good digestion and clear the blood, the betel nut has been banned back in canada because it's been linked with mouth cancer. i think it's mostly the chewing tobacco that does that, but that's just my guess. i hope a few mitha paan won't kill me!

01.11 mirror mirror on the ceiling....

today's mumbai cab had drrrrty mirrors.

on the ceiling.

01.11 mystery fruit

mumbai market. this fruit was coal-like on the outsite (even left black smears on stuff like coal), but pear-like and yummy inside. he told what they were but in my haste i didn't write it down. mystery fruit!!

01.11 bolly

being in mumbai - aka bollywood, home of the world's biggest film industry, i just had hit the cinemas satisfy my flick-fix. here's what i found...

get off the kabul express...
ok. how can any self respecting director, producer, actor, actress, hell - set designer, makeup artist, key grip, gaffer, extra - put their name to this and let this dribble make it out the editing studio, out here into the real world?? john abraham, i was expecting more from you! to think this film made it to the festival circuit. there must have been a shortfall of made-for-the-foreign-market desi flix last year. basically three journalists travel to the afghanistan border and find what they are looking for: a taliban. they realise he's a human being - how poignant. but the movie is so predictable and the acting is so brutally bad that i can't say it's worth it. not even a good ole dance sequence to mix it up.
my rating: skip it


om for omkara
another retake of shakespeare's othello but omkara is a dark jewel. gorgeous sets. good music. well conceived characters. of course excellent plot (thanks william!), on-point acting. ajay, vivek, salif, kareena and the gorgeous bipasha - each one of the actors give it - and that makes this film what it is. a masterpiece and true to shakespeare's vision. inherent caste divisions are a perfect replacement for omkara's "moorishness", because he's mixed, which makes him "different". a totally engaging tragedy.
my rating: do it

gandhism in lage raho munna bhai
and on the lighter side.... the second comedy about munna the thug. gandhi is the coolest dude in the film. it won awards for promoting gandhism and still stays true to bolly convention: boy chases girl, boy gets girl, singing and dancing scenes ensue, when along comes big fat problem, boy loses girl, gandhism takes root, a showdown goesdown, boy gets girl back. no... gandhi is not gettin with any women in the film, in case that's what you thought...
my rating: do it

still gotta catch canadian director deepa mehta's water. it's been shortlisted for the academy awards. i'm not surprised, since the other two in her trilogy, earth and fire are solid.

all in all my film foray was pretty satisfying. i haven't seen anything up to par with lagaan, but i'd put omkara and munna bhai up there with monsoon wedding and taal...

01.10 hindi 101

i had to pick up some hindi while in hindustan.

i'm not 100% courageous in using what i've learned, but i'm working at it. it's been funny being with my folks because they didn't grow up speaking hindi, only hearing some other people use it, and in east africa no less... but immersed in it now, they sound like true hindiphiles.

if anyone's up for a little hindi lesson, i'm laying down some key phrases here...

hello = NAMASKAR
hello (in a rajasthani village) = RAM-RAM (hands in prayer pose)
ok = ACHHA (best with the ihw)
please = KRIPYA
thank you = DHANYAVAD / SHUKRIYA
how are you = KYA HAAL HAIN
my name is.... = MERA NAAM HAI....
your name is? = AAPNA NAAM KYA HAI?
no problem / my pleasure = KOI BAAT NAHI (best with the ihw)
i like it a lot = MUJHKO BOHOT PASAN HAI
where is the bathroom? = MEN'S /LADIES NA TOILET KAHAAN HAI?
it is nice to meet you = AAP SE MIL KE KHU-SHI HUI
take me to my hotel = KRIPYA MUJHE HOTAL LE CHLIYE
how much does this cost? = YEH KITNE KA HAI?
it's expensive = YEH BOHOT MEHENGA HAI
this = YEH
to make a phone call = PHONE KARNAA
where's the phone? = PHONE KAHAAN HAIN?
what time is it? = KYA SAMAY HAI?
help = MADAD
doctor = DOCTOR
police = PULIS
taxi = TAXI
tea = CHAI
water = PAANEE
do you speak English? = KYA AAP ANGREZI AATEH HAI?
i don't understand = MERI SAMAJ MEI NAHIN AAYA
one, two, three, four, five = EK, DO, THEEN, CHAR, PANCH
six, seven, eight, nine, ten = CHEH, SAAT, AAT, NAU, DAS
come here = IDHAR AAO
don't touch me = DON'T TOUCH ME

when in doubt, use your hands and gesticulate wildly....