This seen during last month’s US Figure Skating championship. A Bollywood medley rendered on skates. On Ice.
Meet Americans Charlie White and Meryl Davis, rocking the house Bolly style. [link]
For a country which had three participants at the ongoing Winter Olympics who didn’t make any news beyond attending the opening ceremony in mismatched attire, including one who got his equipment thanks to contributions from the legal community, this is probably the closest we will ever get to a presence in any sporting event on ice.
Ah well, at least we rule (field) hockey. Oops…sorry i went back in time by some 40 years. My bad.
Can you truly recreate a legend? Probably not. But you can certainly try!
Most of my generation grew up listening to that immortal classic Mile Sur Mera Tumhara back in the days of Doordarshan. That song/video will forever remain one of the most amazing memories of my childhood, never failing to give me the goosebumps.
Zoom TV has gone ahead and tried to recreate the song. Phir Mile Sur, with a lot of new faces and a lot of new settings. It’s beautiful. Nothing that presents India in such amazing glory can not be beautiful.
There’s sportsmen, singers, and Bollywood personalities. Men and women of immense talent doing their thing against spellbinding backdrops. Pretty awesome.
The video opens with a piece by AR Rehman, followed by Big B, with the 26/11 ravaged Taj hotel in the background.
There’s Aamir, (again) shaping the country’s future with little kids. Salman has a touching bit miming out the segment with a group of children. Aishwarya gets her share of lip synching, and of course she has her husband in tow. (Do they ever appear without each other? Is this love, or is it some sort of imprisonment?). The ever improvising Siva Mani drumming away on water.
Here’s a little preview. The full video available here (16 minutes long)
More than 60 of India’s icons have lent their support to this initiative which has taken almost a year to create. It took more than 60 days of on-location shoot, across 15 cities of India, 30 days of post production, 22 of India’s biggest superstars, 18 of India’s best musicians, 13 of India’s best artists and singers, 15 of India’s most renowned icons to create this magnum opus. Each artist speaks of a cause and the video is shot at places which have historical value and significance. [link]
Phir Mile Sur is quite good, but Mile Sur Mera Tumhara [video] remains untouchable. Far beyond the reach of any remake, for its vision and the tremendous impact it had on the nation.
The story of IIM, told in the space of 5 odd minutes. Pretty niftily done too!
There’s assignments, summer placements, girls (just the one), a temple, divine intervention, and success at last. All elements of a masala movie rolled into a fraction of the time.
Just when we thought we were tired of listening to the AR Rehman Oscar winner track from Slumdog Millionaire, we have another winner.
This time, its a group ofspanish singers singing the song in full Hindi glory. Makes for some intriguing viewing, an army of singers trying to sing the song in a language they cant speak, with lyrics they don’t understand.
It’s fascinating to see how this song seems to have become such a huge international rage.
Here’s another rendition. Inmates of a Philippines prison dancing in great sync to Jai Ho. Very well choreographed!
Husain Haqqani, the Pakistani ambassador to the US was on Jon Stewart’s Daily show last night.
Started off a bit cocky with an uncalled-for dig at the guests on the show. Or did he mean the audience? Not sure.
“So how much of Pakistan does Pakistan control?”
“Pakistan controls most of Pakistan. The Taliban are a nuisance, just as some of your guests are.”
Maybe it had something to do with the Fareed Zakaria appearance on the show earlier this month where he lashed out at the hypocrisy of Pakistan, and how Pakistan has conned America over the past many years.
This is the story of Tripthi, an Indian girl who gets married to this NRI.
When she comes to New York, her Americanized husband starts feeling uncomfortable about her FOB-iness. Then when she tries adapting to a western lifestyle, he expects a traditional Indian wife. Eventually, after being shown a middle finger, he realizes his idiocy, and all is well.
That’s the way it is with us Indian dudes. We want to live here, but marry back home.
There are many cultural differences between India and America, and it can take time for newbies to adjust to the new lifestyle. Then there are people who can lose themselves in their new lives and look down upon others who aren’t as Americanized sophisticated.
All it takes is a look back at the days when you were in those shoes, and an open heart that accepts people for who they are, regardless of whether they know how to operate a dishwasher or not.
Just came across this video of Priyanka Gandhi in conversation with our beloved Barkha Dutt.
The full interview on NDTV’s site is 25 minutes long, but an interesting watch. Priyanka comes across as a very smart and logical woman. She reiterates that she is never going to enter politics, and somehow we are reminded of her mother, the current head of Congress.
I know i am good (at politics). I am not a fool. But does that mean i want to be in politics? No.
She talks about her mother, her father, the Tamil movement, and of course her little brother Rahul.
Our favorite desi singer Anoop NoopDawg Desai is out of American Idol.
This week on the show it was down to the last seven contestants, out of which two were eliminated because last week the judges used their discretionary save to bring back Matt Giraud after America had voted him out.
The axe fell on Anoop and Lil Rounds, which sucks because he sure had it in him to go a few more rounds.
Here’s one powerful Indian man. Manjit Singh, a 59 year old security consultant showed off his strength on reality show Britain’s Got Talent.
First Singh blew up a hot water bottle, till it actually BLEW up. He followed up by pulling a car that looked like a Maruti Omni using his right ear.
He wants to eventually pull a Boeing 747 plane.
He will have it relatively easy, though. He plans to use his entire body, so that will probably give him an added advantage over the plane, which weighs in at about 300,000 Kgs.
If only he were one year older, i could have used that legendary line from the DD days.
Saath saal ke boodhe, yaan saath saal ke jawaan!” (Sixty year old, or sixty year young!)
Britain’s Got Talent keeps coming across unique Indian contestants. Readers might recall this dance duo from last year.
For those not in the loop, Williams is a NASA astronaut who holds the record for the longest space flight by a woman – 195 days. That’s six months and a half of gravity-less existence.
The Colbert Report is a talk show hosted by Stephen Colbert. Colbert is an interesting host. Funny, loud, satirical, and probably a bit too self-aggrandizing.
“What’s that mommy?
“Its the Stephen Colbert module from the space station”
“The same Stephen Colbert who saved earth from the zombies?”
“Yes. He was the most tender lover i have had”
Anyway, Colbert has been trying to get something on the space station named after him, and seems like they are going to name their treadmill the ‘Colbert’. The Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistive Treadmill
Now the words that will be passed to the ground whenever someone has to workout will be – “Its time for me to jump on the Colbert“
Here’s a clip of Sunita Williams talking to Stephen Colbert. Check out the hair! (On her. Not him)
Unless you have been living under a rock these past few months you would have heard of Twitter.
Alright alright, don’t come down so hard on yourself…main hoon na!
So Twitter is this new micro blogging platform that has taken the technology worldblogging world entire world by storm. Suddenly there’s celebrities going around touting their twitter accounts. TV personalities are being measured in terms of the number of followers they have. News is being disseminated via short 140 character messages (including blank spaces).
Essentially everybody and their grandma’s cat has a twitter account these days.
You can tweet from twitter.com. You can tweet from the million odd applications created for this very purpose. You can tweet from your iphone. And then, you can tweet via plain old SMS.
You can get news. You can find out when your friends woke up. You can find out when your friends went to sleep. You can follow famous people and find out what they are upto. You can talk to famous people and feel famous yourself.
You can tell the whole world just what the heck you are upto.
Biz Stone, one of the co founders of Twitter, was on the Colbert Report show last night. Here’s a video. Watch and enjoy.
Twitter is the messaging service we didn’t know we needed until we had it.
Twitter is great. Twitter is awesome.
Of course, we are on Twitter.
Follow us for some inciteful news and updates on what’s right and what’s left in this world.
The bell rang, and two fighters went out at each other. Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer squared off on the Daily Show last night, and Stewart ripped Cramer apart.
Jim Cramer is the host of a show on CNBC called Mad Money which is a rather, um, crazy show. It is loud and dramatic, and i have never been able to watch a complete episode. Stewart is probably one of the smartest guys on American television. His Daily Show is a funny talk show where serious news gets presented in a funny way.
You could say they are both entertainers in their own way.
Anyway, Stewart ran a bit criticizing CNBC and their apparently poor (and irresponsible) standards of coverage of financial news. Cramer took offense, and said some stuff about Stewart. This went back and forth for a few days, and for some reason, Cramer decided to appear on the show last night.
Mr Stewart seemed pissed, and he laid it on Cramer. I don’t think i have seen Stewart as serious ever.
The full interview is available online. Here’s part 1 of the three part series. Watch an intro video about the whole thing here.
For those who did watch the show last night, they didn’t show the entire interview on TV. This is the complete thing.
Last year it was Sanjaya Malakar, known more for his hairdos than his singing. This year it is Anoop ‘Noop Dogg’ Desai. Another desi guy in the running to be American Idol.
Anoop almost didn’t make it. He was not in the final 12 selected for the Idol finals, but scraped through as a wild card, thanks to tremendous public support. Maybe the show organizers realize the importance of the Indian community which pretty much carried Sanjaya through to the last stages of the contest. There’s a lot of viewership (and ad revenue) there!
