Kailasa on tour

Kailash Kher and his band Kailasa –  known for their own musical creations as well as Kher’s solid  co-career  as a playback singer – have just begun a US tour in Houston yesterday to support their latest CD Kailasa Chaandan Mein and the upcoming release for the US market called Yatra. They were on this […]

Bollywood Hero Rides the Bus

In the lead-up to the August debut of the IFC mini-series Bollywood Hero, images of Chris Kattan, Pooja Kumar and Neha Dhupia have started appearing on a variety of buses around NYC (in this case, one of the tourist doubledeckers, and they’re also gracing the side of NYAS airport-bound vehicles too): IFC has also complied […]

Patiala pegs and Adam bashers

I stumbled across this mignon little tome in Barnes & Noble one day a while back.   Along the lines of their phrasebooks, Lonely Planet has published Indian – English Language and Culture, and under that rubric they manage to stuff in all sorts of linguistic notes and cultural explanations. My ties to the subcontinent […]

Bamboo Shoots: The star-spangled manner

Here’s a profile I did of the band Bamboo Shoots as it ran in India Abroad’s July 10, 2009 issue.   They’re a homegrown Jersey-based rock band, but with a variety of Indian influences – everything from classical to filmi music – in their pasts. Avir Mitra, Karl Sukhia and Shiv Puri were gathered, one […]

Sunset Bollywood

The Sundance Channel ran the 2005 documentary Sunset Bollywood this evening. Just under an hour, it tells of the rapid success and almost equally prompt descent back to earth of Rahul Roy, Kumar Gaurav and Bhagyashree after their initial hits, and the halting attempts made by all to get back on top. In between interviews […]

Waking Up to B’wood at the IFC Channel

Leading up to their August mini-series Bollywood Hero with Chris Kattan and Neha Dupia, the IFC Channel started a monthlong 12 weeklong Sunday morning screening of a recent Hindi movie, at 10am, called Wake Up to Bollywood. The debut flic on July 5th was Johnny Gaddar, to be followed by Bheja Fry, The Blue Umbrella, […]