Bibi Magazine

They Called Me 'Gandhi' on the 5th Grade Playground

noreply@blogger.com (FunnyLadki) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:38:00 +0000

As Indian-Americans, we have all had those completely necessary moments in life where we were rudely smacked with the realization that we were outsiders. And still later, the enlightening moments that taught us that we were okay, no matter who we were. The following essay captures two of those moments for me. I thought it was time to publish it, in honor of my first trip to the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine Center here in Los Angeles yesterday. Enjoy. --rm

* * *

Up until I was 10, I had no awareness that I was somehow "different." The most noticeable trait that set me apart from other kids my age were my weekends. My typical Saturday/Sunday was spent with family, in another family’s living room, which had been converted into a makeshift shrine of several of the Hindu Gods, using simple patterned bedsheets draped over carpets, as 60 of us, brought together by our common last name, would sit and chant Om Jai Jagdish Hare, if we knew the words. Fruit baskets and halwa offerings lay ready to be scooped up out of stainless steel dishware and passed around in mini Dixie paper plates. Halwa was from the Gods, so you had to eat it. If you just couldn’t, you had to give it to a parent. You never threw it away. Such were the rules. So, while I would be yawning through the pooja, wondering how come the older kids were getting away with watching Lethal Weapon in the other room, and passing the Dixie on the left hand side to my mom, the rest of the kids from my school were out at the Mall, scarfing down dollar slices of pizza, throwing away the crust and flirting with boys over a game of skeeball. Yeah, I was different.

* * *

Especially compared to fellow fifth grader Ashley Jacobson, an obnoxious, obese, 110 lb. 10-year old terror of an Aryan-raced girl. Of course I just saw her as "bully." She was the girl that I would often let cheat off of me because either I was nice, or she was mean, I couldn't tell which. The girl who outed herself in the school bus as having already started her period by age nine! Bragged about it, actually. Is that even something to be bragging about? “Congratulations Ashley, you can get pregnant now. Wow, seems like just yesterday, you were eight!” Hey, in her culture, the sooner you probably got to womanhood meant the sooner you could do EVERYTHING. I don't know why it was then, that someone who already saw herself as having the upper hand on me, had to lash out against me even more. For it was this girl to take the high honor of being the first person in my life to point out my race to me like it was a bad thing.

It was a hot day at Rees Elementary in Houston, Texas. We were on the blacktop at recess. We were playing four-square. Someone made a move that wasn't too favorable to her. My only-other-Indian-besides-me friend named Payal and I took sides against her. Suddenly, Ms. Immature-Yet-Premature honed in on the two of us and, rather than arguing the bad call, instead started chanting, “Gandhi! Gandhi!"

* * *

I don't remember very much about what happened next, but I know I didn’t hit her. Smirk. Maybe my face got as hot as the blacktop. Maybe the game resumed around me, among my now normal classmates. Maybe a teacher came over and separated Ashley from us, because for a young person like Payal, who came from an educated, politically aware Indian family, she had the wherewithal to comprehend that you don't say that, that's wrong, I'm telling a teacher!
But that was it. Ashley was told to stop, and that was it. There was no apology from her. There was no hushed conversation between the fifth grade faculty about whether or not they should “sit their foreign students down and talk about their feelings of foreignness.” No appeasing notes sent home with us from the Principal, telling our parents how pleased he is that such bright, hardworking students attend his school. Worse yet, nothing occurred to smack Ashley’s previously-closeted-now-out home-taught racism upside the head. Who knows how many more she would go on to terrorize, tossing back-pocketed playground insults at young impressionable Chinese, Black, and Polish kids, on long bus rides home from school. We were literally left to our own devices to sort out what had happened on our own.

* * *

Now that I’m older, and have read enough, and have experienced enough to know that I wish to pursue a life that is based on Truth and Love and Justice, it really sucks that the only memory I have is not that Ashley Jacobson hurled the name “Gandhi” around like it was an insult, but that I took it like an insult. I mean, how could yelling "Gandhi" at someone possibly be construed as an insult? That's like coming up to a young Argentinian kid, knocking over his ice cream and waiting till he starts crying to chant, "Che Guevara! Che Guevara!" Makes zero sense, right? Now, if she had called me "Ravan," a mythological demon from the lore of Hinduism, or even "Gabbar Singh," the sex offending villain from the 1975 Bollywood classic, Sholay...well, then Ashley just plain deserved a ladoo for knowing that information!
But seriously. She uttered the name of a fearless leader. Greatest father of a nation to have ever walked the path of a human. Someone who got beat, punched, spat on, clubbed, kicked... and did nothing violent in retaliation to stop it. Kind of sounds like me at that moment on the playground, only I hadn’t quite mastered the part about holding your head up high.
I know now that the only reason it read like an insult is because she conveyed it as one. It all replays in my mind like the fight sequence of a movie: Slo-mo. Like a mad hound foaming at the mouth, "Gandhi" spills from the ignorant rottweiler's lips. Pan to Payal, who aborts the dodgeball game with an air of CODE RED! Cut to me, with a sick, tightening in my gut like I’ve just done something wrong. Close-up on the beads of sweat. Cut back to Ashley laughing, pointing, satisfied at how her treachery lands. Crane shot of me, head hanging down, defeated. Fade Out.
I was only a child of 10, but God, I wish I had known!
Known what to say back. If I had been slightly more well-read, slightly bolder, and slightly bigger in stature, I could have faced that 130 lb. godless porkchop and tossed back, "Oh, you’re calling me Gandhi? Why thank you! Yes, after recess, I do have to go to my locker and grab my cotton loom. Next year, I can start wearing a training bra that I weaved all by myself! Oh, what did I bring to eat? Nothing. Yup sorry, Ashley. I can’t trade your string beans for a pudding, I'm on a strict fast here. Yeah, since I'm Gandhi and all, I'd say that pretty much puts me in charge. What say tomorrow for recess, we all go on a march and dump some Morton Salt in the bayou behind the school? Wear good walking chapals.”
I know, I know. You’re saying, “Gandhi never used sarcasm.” I know. He used authenticity with a knowing smile on his face. Well, that takes practice. So does taking an absolutely unwavering stand for humanity, coupled with the grace of humility.

* * *

I do remember not staying mad at Ashley that year. Sometime during the spring, we found ourselves together again, drawing on the classroom chalkboard, during indoor recess. She was being nice to me because she had just cheated off my Reading Comprehension test. She began telling a few of us about a show she thought we'd like. A show which would end up forever changing and shaping the rest of my life. In big, white chalky letters, she wrote out the syndicated time slot 5pm, ch 13. Then very simply, she wrote out, The Monkees.
Maybe I made a point to watch it because she told me about it, and I wanted to feel like I had something in common with her. Maybe I wanted to bridge that gap. Maybe her 165 lb. frame just scared me. Either way, she was dead on about me. I loved the show, immediately connected with the silly style of humor, and the next day I strutted into class sporting a healthy new crush on Peter Tork and couldn't stop talking about it. She smiled and we went back to our school work.

When I was working on this conclusion, I sought out to find a really great quote by Mohandas Gandhi to wrap things up. Something about conquering your enemies with love or how your enemies sometimes come bearing the greatest gifts. But instead, I found this:

“In the dictionary of Satyagraha (civil disobedience and nonviolence), there is no enemy.”

Myths Debunked with Shetal Shah

noreply@blogger.com (shetal) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 01:14:00 +0000

MYTHS DEBUNKED #1

So what does fashion and beauty have to do with acting? Those of us in the South Asian celebrity circle walk down red carpets with camera bulbs flashing and TV reporters asking for interviews. We’re invited as special guests to host events, to be spokespeople for various products, to write blogs for cool magazine websites. (tee hee!) We see our names and faces in various South Asian magazines and newspapers and on DVD covers in video stores. And, all the while, we’re dressed to the nines in gorgeous designer clothing, shoes and jewelry. So the glam is the actor; the actor is the glam, right? The myth stays intact. Well, it’s time for a little myth debunking…

Yes, the red carpets and special invites do happen, but there’s a whole other world to the actor’s life that has absolutely nothing to do with beautiful salwaar-kameezes and perfectly coiffed hair. It’s more like leggings, a tank top, and a loosely tied ponytail with confused strands peeking out over ears and forehead!

Common Myth #1: Acting is easy! You just get up there and pretend!

Truth is acting is a lot of work – hard work! And training. It’s a 24-hour commitment that involves auditions, rejections, more auditions and more rejections! Because our bodies and voices are our instruments, constant preparation, learning, and fine-tuning must occur every day. The job never stops. And for all that hard work, there’s no guaranteed payback. So why do it? It’s a known fact that actors are crazy! We’re just plain crazy! We have this drive to act, despite every hurdle that would stop normal people from continuing on, that we can’t explain in rational terms. The acting bug has bitten us and there’s no going back. So we strive to be good. And to be good is to be simple. To be simple takes a lifetime to achieve.

You know you’re an actor when…you’ve been rejected 20 times and it’s only Wednesday … you’ve sacrificed stability for Shakespeare and money for Mamet.

Next blog: more Myths Debunked …

Cool in Your Code

noreply@blogger.com (BibiGirl) — Thu, 22 May 2008 04:22:00 +0000

A few nights ago, dressed in my Monday night best, I attended a certain upper east side event, where the men were as good looking as the real estate. The only problem, as is usually the case with these categories, both were taken by that evasive New York breed, the super chic, super tall women with the gorgeous accents and the even more gorgeous shoes.

The event was very posh with a fashion showcase, great ambiance and a very distinguished host who, to my surprise, was perhaps the only New Yorker who still let people smoke in his town home. Very global, I must say.

And a global event it was, with people from all parts of the world dining on delicious South Asian food and a delicious South Asian scene. Amongst the usual suspects of the charity circuit crowd and the very married couples, young hungry actors eyed up socialites and older male tycoons couldn't take their eyes off of the younger models. It was... the perfect New York scene.

But amongst all the talk of summers in the Hamptons and winters in Bombay or Lahore or Dhaka, I happened upon one South Asian auntie who thought it was cool to say that she never ventured out of Manhattan? Last I checked, JFK was located in Queens, and she didn't look rich enough to have her own private jet. Being global, thinking global is hot! That means...sorry to inform her...bounding yourself to just one small piece of land is sooo 90's.. Doesn't she watch "Cool in Your Code?" Apparently not.

If Aishwariya Can Teach Oprah, Then I Can Teach Ellen

noreply@blogger.com (FunnyLadki) — Mon, 12 May 2008 20:21:00 +0000

"Do the voice a little more high status. More British-educated."

I hear the direction and clear my throat. I poise my epiglottis. I summon my inner Charu, a cousin 10 years my senior, possessing the most graceful, bird-songlike voice you could ever hear, and who had the good fortune to grow up in the Bahamas, along with so many Indian cities.

"Loook at that beeyooo-tiffel rreeng!"

Ew. I sound clunky.

"You know what? That's fine, that's fine," the creator of a brand new ethnic cartoon that I'm not supposed to talk about yet says on the iChat. "Just do me a favor. Did you see the Aishwariya interview with Oprah? Yeah. Study that." And in a flash on the laptop screen, he was gone. Poof. And click.

The cartilage flaps that can make or break a voiceover career.

* * * *

So many interviews of Ash on YouTube. There's 60 Minutes. CNNIBN. And yes, who could forget the most notorious of the bunch--the terribly awkward, in-no-way-humorous David Letterman interview from '05. It hurt back then, and it hurts me now. I even left two comments about the apparent "misunderstandings" between her and Dave's self-deprecating nature, comments which so passionately defended Americans and our sense of humor, that both seemed to be marked as spam and deleted! Alas. What a YouTube rite of passage.

But it was this impression of a "snootier" version of my cousin's voice that I was taking into my search for the not-as-famous Oprah video. I mean, when they said to do Ash, I rolled my eyes. It's so hard for me to act like someone I've...well...let's just say, lost a little liking for. Probably why I'll never make it in Hollywood, and she will.

Lo and behold. There it was. A whole 10:25 dedicated to The Most Beautiful Woman in the World meeting The Most Powerful Woman in the World. Oh my god, the universe just might collapse on itself.

Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised to see how well Aishwariya did on Ms. Winfrey's turf. She was NICE (number one thing I look for), she was elegant, and best of all, she shared with Oprah how to tie a lovely sari. Oprah was tickled. And you know only Tom Cruise and Will Smith can tickle Oprah. Now an Indian woman was doing it. I enviously watched, thinking, "Oh man! This is what I want to do with Ellen!"

* * * *

Ever since I saw Ellen crankin' that Souljaboy, I have been wanting to get The Sari (W)rap into her hands. And now I finally have the videos to do so.

I love Ellen. I have successfully impersonated her innocent demeanor and hesitant voice on MTV's Wild 'N Out and a new show for BET, so you know the African-American constituency is lovin' when I do that funny white Lesbian. You like how I capitalized Lesbian and not White? Oh, there it is.

And she's got so much soul! Not the kind that Oprah has, but the kind where she's genuinely willing to make a fool of herself in order to make the star look good. And she likes puppies. Little homeless puppies.

The Sari (W)rap video has now been seen by over 300 lucky film fest goers. It debuted at SAIFF 2007, went abroad to the UK for the 2008 Tongues on Fire Asian Women's Film Fest, and made a splash in two screenings at the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles 2 weeks ago. It's now been requested by film festivals across the country, overseas in Italy, and even gotten me a special request to come to Mexico to perform it LIVE for one of their biggest film festivals, Expresion en Corto in San Miguel de Allende. Ah, don't you just love the way those words roll off of your alveolar ridge? For sure, The Sari (W)rap makes people smile and simultaneously teaches them how to tie a sari, all in rap song form. Ellen would love it.

Rasika cranks her shirt open on the set of the Sari (W)rap

Sure, sure, Aishwariya has gotten to Oprah. That's an undeniable match. The high-status. The divas. The been-through-it-alls with the media.

But then there's me and Ellen. The lighthearted. The make lemons out of Minute Maid. The silly, the quirky, the don't really fit in until we put our differences right up in people's faces--THEN they love us--kids.

It's a perfect meeting of the underdogs.

Of course, Oprah would be a dream, too. As would redeeming our culture's humility on Letterman. But I'm just sayin'. When I go to Ellen, at least I'll remember to bring a petticoat.

* * * *

Candy Girls

noreply@blogger.com (FunnyLadki) — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 17:03:00 +0000

Here at the BibiMagazine.com blog, you can count on us to cover universal topics such as Beauty and Fashion. In my first piece about Beauty, I thought I could talk about one of my experiences from being on MTV's Wild N Out. "But wait, Rasika. That's a comedy show. What's that got to do with beauty?"

Well, I can't tell you how many times I've been hounded by beautiful California girls who are hoping to get their big break with Mr. Nick Cannon. They often see me as the approachable cast member who will be a good inroads for their career. One particular girl I met, Hanoosha, was the epitome of these women. After a brief conversation with her, I felt it was important to highlight the dreams and struggles such women. Please read on for her story...

Interview with Wild N Out Girl Wannabe,
Hanoosha Siam

Hanoosha grew up envying girls with "teeth like Chiclets."
(© Associated Priss)

RM: So where do you have yet to be discovered?
HS: At a party thrown by King Magazine. I want to get my big break.
RM: Oh, I’ve heard a lot of Wild n Out girls go to those things.
HS: Yeah! Hey can you get me in to see Nick?
RM: Uh...I could talk to someone about it.
HS: Girl, I so wanna be down with all that. I love hip hop, my brother’s a DJ, he said “Maybe Rasika can get us on the show. His music, and my mm-mm-mm!”
RM: Rrrright. Um...gosh. You know what? I'm just gonna cut to the chase up in this piece and be brutally honest here.
HS: I’m too young?
RM: Nope, nope, it’s not that.
HS: I don’t dress fly?
RM: You dress fine.
HS: I’m Indian?
RM: They’d be happy to have that.
HS: Then what’s the problem?
RM: Girl! Look in the mirror! You UGLY! Your ass don't belong in KING Magazine. It belongs in Peasant Weekly!

Character sues creator over intellectual property

noreply@blogger.com (FunnyLadki) — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 03:01:00 +0000

Comedienne Rasika Mathur and creation Nilam Auntie are caught up in the age-old battle of ego and ownership. This recent suit is coming over www.DesiYou.com. Mathur claims the offer was made with her alone to create an original series for the South-Asian site that touts the line "Empower the Desi in You."

Well, the Desi in Rasika Mathur, Nilam Auntie, was empowered alright. Mathur claims that once they began to kick around the idea of creating a show around her own Nilam Auntie character, that Nilam Auntie herself began trying to wrestle the production out of her hands.

"I woke Rasika up in the middle of the night suddenly, rethinking their meeting in my mind," Nilam says. "All the ideas that flew around the table! I felt like Creative Director Harish Rao really knew my voice, and was truly writing for me," Nilam Auntie proclaims. "I hadn't heard Mathur contributing as much, so I figured, I should rely on myself and this new team to really flesh out my voice."

"The next thing I know, they're having meetings without me," defends Mathur. "I'm literally driving her to the meeting and then having to "find something to do" for 2 hours while they outline episodes.'"

During one meeting in particular, Mathur felt like Nilam Auntie's secretary, being ordered to write up the minutes from the meeting, while Nilam went off to actually shoot herself in a sample pilot.

Mathur threatened her by saying that she'd "rue the day" she ever got "her own Myspace page" (www.myspace.com/nilamauntie). Nilam Auntie raised her threat, and saw her a court proceeding.

DesiYou.com had no representatives at the arbitration hearing, as the whole suit took place in Mathur's head at the ungodly hour of 5:00am. It was over within 16 minutes.

"This is not a business for fragile egos, ladies," warns Arbitrator Tom, Mathur's stuffed bear given to her from a cousin in 1982. He looks ragged, but has the most calm demeanor of the entire gang (of stuffed animals). Today, he packed a verbal punch. Provided from Mathur's throat of course. "I suggest you find a cordial way to collaborate on these webisodes. Two minutes and twenty-nine seconds is plenty of time to work with."

Nilam was looking forward to being awarded Rs. 1000,00.00 in punitive damages over traumatic stress, but realizes Mathur is broke. "This whole sharing the same brain thing is getting on our collective nerve."

One can look for the show on www.desiyou.com in the coming months. No further production details were disclosed.

Nilam Auntie was created by Mathur in Winter 2001 on the morning of the Mathur-Nigam mendhi in a Marriott hotel in Los Angeles. Pinches Tacos on Sunset Blvd., their meeting spot and maker of great food, had no comentario.