Thursday, October 30, 2008

Sex in the Diwali Dance Off

Here's the world premier of my first Delhi documentary -- about my road to competing in my newspaper's annual Diwali dance competition!

This is what happens when a hand shake holds the promise of a life-changing collabortation!



--Malena!

Sex in the Presidential Election voting party



I still find it hard to believe, but last Tuesday Oct. 21, a gaggle of Americans in India got together at this sea food place in Lodi Garden, Delhi to cast our absentee, long-distance ballots for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama -- the tall, mocha, and wholesome man we all want to triumph in this year's Presidential Election.

Aside from the Wow-gloss of dropping my second major election vote in India, I was surprised how much I miss Americans... especially our dorky small talk... ahhh, you know the kind that swings from self-deprecation in one breath to self-referential adulation in the next. It's the sort of short-hand talk that gives waaay to many personal, juicy details, then sobers up to talk politics and careers.

Allow me this one generalization, pleaase! But everyday Americans are so loud, so front-porch story-tellers, and we wrap our humor around our disgraces. And it's something I think I can't live without, having been in India and grown tired of the manners culture here among middle-class Indians.

Middle-class Indians, like the ones working at my newspaper remind me so much of everyday Africans. In a greeting, you gotta step through so many formalities before you start talking about the dirt. Meeting an Indian or an African, (and again, my analysis only works if you appreciate the value of some-truth-based stereotypes)-- you can bank on the following questions:

What are you studying?

How do you like Indian/African food? Is it too spicy for you?

How do you like Delhi/ eerr say Dakar?

What do your parents do? Where are they from?

Are you married?


Of course Americans also bounce through scripts, but it's rare you'll find the conversation I had with one respectfully employed American at the party, on the first talk with an Indian in Delhi.

Me: Oh so you visited Mumbai, I hear the city is so much fun!

The American: Yeh! On my first time there I went to a G-rated brothel.

Me: You went to a brothel? What?! Wait, what's a G-rated brothel!?!

The American: I know man! See you go in, and the girls line up with their backs to you, then they take turns turning around to smile at you. Then, they'll walk up to you to talk if they want.

Me: And you pay for this?

The American: Yeh, some guys get off on just the flirt!

Me: Wooooow...

The American guy's friend: Oh man, I totally forgot, we can go to a strip club in India! Man, let's go to a strip club!

Me: Hahahahahahah... so what are you guys doing here again?

The American: We just started a solar paneling business. It's our first couple weeks in India and we're excited to be here.


Ah, I love the smell of self-asserting irreverence and I-don't-give-a-hoot-what-you-think (as long as I'm not doing harm to the world), and especially at an election party...

Go-Bama!

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Sex in the camel ride to Times of India

It was the second week ya'll...and I rode a camel to work!!

Camels aren't even indigenous to India. But a camel herder can spin a dazzling rupee offering magic camel rides, especially now during India's big holiday season.

Still, I was shocked to see the camel guys creep up behind us on my walk to work and instantly I felt riding one would be my closest chance to fulling my childhood dream of riding big bird...lol,



*SANY0016 from http://digitalindia.vox.com/

Elsa, the beautiful journalist joining me on the ride, is my Delhi crime buddy. When we roll together, we always get on top of things -- while trying to get to the bottom of others. Our handsome reporter diva Michelle shot the footage (which also includes a school of children racing out to gallop with us, and later, hitting fashion model poses with the camel playing backdrop!)

Elsa tells the hilarious story about the rattling ride at her sweet site Digital India.

Ah! And Later peeps, I'll have a whole talk about transporation in Delhi -- its the most diverse in the world I think, and it's deep ya'll, how people get around here.

;:)
--Malena

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Sex in the Delhi Fashion Week -- OMG! India's 1st Black model

Dark skin is a curse in Indian society.

But tonight, the crowds attending Dheli Fashion week were put under the spell, and it was sexiest curse this country has seen.

Laimi, a twiggy, midnight-toned model from Namibia just made her second run on the catwalk as the first black woman to crunch the fashion carpet in a major fashion week in India.

And get this: her effortless pump down the runway was only outbeat by another black model, Millen, a Tanzanian Goddess. Watch them warm up for a set organized by the rock-n-roll Namibian Jan. When Laimi pulls out the smile -- you can see why she's put up front.



Laimi was prepping for a set designed by Tarun Tahiliani when we met. Confident about her first-ever status, Laimi talked about her hope for African girls. She wants to show them they can only assess their success once they've tried succeeding. For this, Laimi said she wants to be Africa's top model. And who can blame her. Her black-crystal stare could freeze a lot of competition. And it has.

Sitting with her, I felt the chill. Her beauty was so divinely composed, an adrogenous mirage.

But also, what really frosted our encounter was the feeling that I was looking in the mirror.

Like Liami -- I am a Black-to-India first.

I am the first black American journalist to work for the largest business paper in Asia.

And too often, it's easy to feel like I'm the only black woman in Delhi.

When Indians see me, they just don't stare. They imprint a tattoo of their curiosity on my body. The everyday Indian knows that Africans live in Delhi, but they don't work or communicate with these Africans.

Walking around Delhi, I feel like a visual-wiki for Indians, where they gain a quick glance at what black people are all about. So accordingly, I walk tall, erect, and hard.

Maybe that explains why Laimi and the South African model Millen performed so radiantly-- I mean so drastically better than the other models, that the catwalk looked more like a walk-off between Tyra Banks and her newbie understudies on America's Next Top Model.

Fittingly, the designer Tahiliani chose Liami and Millen to execute an exercise in futurism. India can't survive on the world market clinging to its most damning social signage: NO DARK PEOPLE ALLOWED.

Tahiliani is a balding, middle-aged designer but his perspective on color is neither balding or middle-aged.

Tahiliani said the privilege of lightness --and Indians' skin-whitening fetish --is all wrong.

What's fascinating about the fashion world is that it understands that to make a political point, you just can't trump the right notes.

You got to show bodies in action.

The challenge of India -- and this is across industries -- is how it'll embody, not just talk up, its claim to modernity and its call for equality.

This fashion week is the slickest progress I've seen since I got here.

Front-staging black models in bright, contrasting colors is not only daring, it could have been a career disaster here in India. The risk is a rare, but righteous one.

Yet and still, I am a tad skeptical.

A big part of me is tired of black bodies forming parts of political speech. I'm tired of us being used as symbols of this and that. As representations rather than representatives.

The talk I had with Liami was telling. So engrossed by her presence here, I doted on her symbolic value, the frame of her purpose here, and not the textures of her canvas.

When really, by the end, all I wanted to ask was...so, how do you like India?


****** PART 11 ****** For readers like Brittanie who are obsessed with Fashion *****

Delhi Fashion Week is a rebel splinter faction of India's Fashion Week, the 11-year-old event that features name-drop-able designers, but overall, fashion that hard appeals to India's sari sensibilities.

A sari is a traditional wrap around dress worn by women and of course, cross-dressers. I met one on the side of the road and he begged me for money.

Saris are utilitious outer-wear, but after seeing nearly every woman outside the office wear one, the sari wears thin on uniqueness and thick on India's obsession with tradition.

I haven't figured why --in their words-- a bunch of designers decided to form a separate coalition.

I'm working on this story.

--

COME BACK for VIDEO!!

Annnnd, for my extended talk on saris.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Sex in the Beverly Hills of Delhi

Come In! See My Guest House!



There are perks to leaving New York City for three months for a special reporting program arranged by Columbia University and the Times of India.

My guest house is purely botanical and decked out -- marble flo' for real and window doors and two levels of zen-like design and 24-hour gaurds with the warmest smiles.

And in my backyard -- I have two pet cows!

My favorite place is a deck behind the dining room that opens up to the world-- a nice view of another beautiful house and grass and the sounds of bats, birds, and lizards.

I've been praying all over the house. I've been dancing all over the house too. Like on a terrace of white stone -- rarely occupied by a sound.

My guest house reminds me of Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa. Here, I know I'll meet God in a form I couldn't fathom just days before.

--Malena

Sex in my first Punjabi Bhangra wedding romp

Oh my goodness!



I had a Color Purple moment ya'll. I swear I did!!

At lunch time today, I stepped out the shower and right into the blare of dhol drums pounding through my windows and right into my heart.

Instantly, the drums grabbed my feet and I started running to the sound, running and running, and running-- practically yelling "where are those drums!? where are those drums!?"

I didn't even have on shoes.

So I went back in, grabbed my bag, a camera, and some shoes. On my way out again, I grabbed one of the house men and begged him to take me to the sound, which had snaked out of an alley right behind my guest house.

When we rounded the corner, I spotted the a cluster of dholis, rapping out the Bhangra sound and dressed out in button-downs and fitted slacks -- no different than the Indian men who show up to New York's Bhangra nights.

A ring of young men flung their Bhangra arms and twitched their shoulders to the boom -- the signature riff of Bhangra dance. All smiles and curious stares, the wedding parade invited me into their flock, racing toward me first with their piercing eyes and shocked reception.

A few women stood by staring hard as hard can stare at me, waiting to see if I'd take on the man crowd or race out screaming.

I did both! And all the while, I kept thinking -- THIS is my dream. One of my biggest reasons for coming to India was to witness the dhol sound live and among the people closest to its origin. Already, so much of my hope for my India trip has been fulfilled. And today's wedding was a good savor for the future.

I tried taping it all. But my camera kept blinking out.

And in the midst of about three guys yanking my arms and plopping me in the middle of the dholi donut -- I had to just go with it.

The lead dholi even stopped the whole drum round to introduce me with the silence of the gawkhers. A herd of people looked on, stuck on my foreignness.

When the lead dholi broke into a round --me and the guys jumped up and down. Ya'll know I couldn't bust out the Zulu because it would have turned into a feeding frenzy quick -- and I would have been carted off by the crowd and my wallet would have been stolen for sure by about a dozen kids who kept harassing me during this whole affair (those brats even threw some rocks at me. They're sooo lucky I was engrossed with the wedding and the dhol!)

But knowing the party wasn't mine -- and knowing I hadn't even stretched to take on the dance challenge -- I ran out the Bhangra gang to take some footage-- which again failed to shoot.

So the men pulled me in again to the steppin' orgy. I ran back out. In and out. In and out!

Until finally, a tall smiling man calling himself David came to my rescue. He stuck his hand out and said Hi. We had a great talk.

Most amazing, David invited me to another Punjabi wedding Tuesday. I'll be ready then. I will bust out the Shaka Ya'll. Lets face it: the Indian Dhol party is an ode to our African rhythms and traditions.

For now, I just have to laugh at myself -- at the way the dhol drum possesses me. It's my holy ghost for now. It's the spitfire spirit that makes me wide-eyed and even dangerous with arousal and energy (I relent to my Xena force over watching out for bodily injury) -- much like the West African djembe drum was for me 5 years ago.

Running to the dhol, and abandoning my everything for the sound, I realize that drums are meant to call us together. We have to continue to sensitive our spirits to receive the givingness and totalizing rapture of drummers who drum for love and for celebration.

The beauty of the drum must be a lesson in love and the uniting of people.

But I'm afraid India's strong male contingency -- and the aggressiveness of Indian men will prevent the Dhol circle from being a co-ed space of joy and abandon.

I practically had to break limb and leg out of that alley to make it home. Thank god Sundeep, a house man was with me. But he wasn't much help. He didn't see much wrong with the throngs of guys grabbing me and getting toooo close.

--Malena

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Sex in the Scooter

I'd say a third of the men in Delhi drive scooters or motorcycles - and all on reckless roads where, despite traffic lines, drivers think the big goal is to run into as many cars and people as possible.

Driving in Delhi is not just hazardous. It's stupid dangerous.

To add to the melee of motor madness, only drivers are required to don helmets.

That law doesn't account for the thousands of women who side-saddle on the back of the men and who never wear helmets. Which is not the case for men who double team on a scooter or motorcycle. About half of the male passengers on the back of a cycle wear helmets!

Even zanier, often women carry their toddlers while riding on the back of the scooter--again, not crouched up to the guy with open legs --but with the whole body slung over one side.

Women want to protect their vanity by not wearing a helmet, some reporter friends say.

Women want to protect their honor by riding with their legs together and slinked on one side, rather than cock a more safe squat with their legs akimbo, and latched to the back of the rider's legs.

And at least once a day -- I see a family of five piled onto one motorcycle. A mom, a dad, and three kids. I 'aint lyin.

So you can imagine how terrified I'd be to ride a scooter in this city.... righhht.

Well-- just the right scooter driver offered me a ride around my neighborhood Friday night!

And between the prospect of wisping through the dusty wind and seeing Delhi at night -- I had to go for the ride -- though I didn't have a helmet. And God knows I 'aint got enough hair to pad my fall like some of the Turban-wearin men.

But the scooter ride was delightfully mind blowing. I felt like I was wind. Coming from my past two years in New York City, riding the subway, and feeling no control over my mode of transportation, I felt unstoppable on the scooter though I wasn't in command.

And the moon is so spectacular when you're going 40 miles an hour under it and the only thing in between you and moon is the wind thats parting its blankets to allow your bug-splattered face to shine...

So the next night, Saturday, I asked the same scooter driver to grant me another rip through town.

We talked the whole time-- like talking while doubling up on a scooter at night, and without a helmet is exactly the type of stories you want to tell your parents...

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Sex in my Delhi guest house

What woman does not want a man to cook and clean for her, smile at her every entrance and laugh at her jokes even when he doesn't get it.

I don't know one straight woman who is self-loathing enough to turn down man pamperage?

The thought of men avenging the static feminization of domestic work is so heavenly -- so frothing at the mouth of so many relationships, that so many of us have --like me--begged to marry the man who served up the first home-cooked meal and a back rub-- in the same night!

But here in India, and inside my guest house, I'm learning that male servitude comes at a price: good English.

Since I arrived at my guest house, a team of three men have catered to me and the five other American journalists I'm staying with.

Their names are Angat, Abbal and Heyat. They all have the most radiant smiles I've seen. They all weigh about a buck 30. They all speak bare-bones Hinglish -- an elixir of Hindi and English.
Meet Angat:



Having pampered me with two-to-three meals a day everyday, with chai tea on demand, with laundry service, with folding my dirty underwear, with making my bed, with being profusely humble and gracious and upbeat --- these men have opened a room in my heart. I love them for their work.

But I just can't stand the subservience and the silence wrought by our mutual incompetency in each other's language.

Most of our exchanges amount to headwobbling -- a gesture everyone in India does to the left or right to say, "ok, I'll take care of it."

I thought I'd never say this, but I'm tired of the men taking care of me. I want them to tell me their dreams, their visions for the world. Their philosophical perspectives on India's rapid modernization. About the way their heart bends when that special woman looks them in the eye and says, 'thank you.'

--Malena

Friday, October 3, 2008

Sex in the Palin and Biden debate

Ahhhhhh...It's 7 am in Delhi and I'm watching the Vice Presidential debate between Sen. Joe Biden and Gov. Sarah Palin on NDTV.

And I just can't believe the words 'poverty' and 'women' --despite the bankrupt grinning of Palin --are never uttered.

Oh and I heard from my mom that tickets for the debate were going for $1,000!

So people had to pay for a load of nothing. That money could have very well gone into a much-needed anti- bullshit-in-the-world fund.

But let me explain why I'm so cranky and why I think poverty and women are the issues of our time Right Now!

Yesterday --I walked from my newspaper job to my guest house --that's a walk from a dust-bin corner to Beverly Hills. On the walk, I saw the gruel of a city that still can't provide water clean enough to brush your teeth with.

I walked over puddles of mud covered with God knows what kind of virus-carrying bugs.

I walked over feces tracked in grounded gutters, urine showered rock hills, children as skinny as dolls, and mothers whose eyes always looked worried.

There were men everywhere. Men rule everything in India.

No matter what you've heard about the strong Indian female --and there are many, and yes, they have good jobs where they start the show. (Like the top editor at my paper Soma who is the Nefertiti of looking you in the eye --and being like-- Tell Me Something I Don't Know)

But for the rest of India -- women are stamped out of mainstream markets and public spaces where they are safe.

Yeah, I know that's not much different that the U.S. But in Delhi, a woman can' t walk alone without the fear of being pulled to a side rode and raped on a road bend.

Knowing this and watching Palin's post-feminist stance on everyththing pisses me off!

And then Palin had the nerve to sing the praises of Biden's wife, a school teacher of 30 years by saying that "Her reward is in Heaven."

Tell that to the women here I've seen whose slice of freedom in heaven will come too soon.

--Malena