BBC Comedy / 48 minutes
"Goodness Gracious Me" was a great BBC comedy series placed in the large British Indian and Pakistani community. It broke many stereotypes and introduced many funny new ones.
I wish there was more "ethnic" humor like that - to get a better insight into another culture or lifestyle in a good and funny way.
Who says it’s hard to understand other cultures humor. Some stuff is pretty universal and easy to “get”. This one cracks me up every time …
Of all the spring festivals Holi seems the happiest to me.
From Wikipedia:
Holior is an annual Hindu spring festival, predominantly celebrated in North India and Nepal. It takes place over two days around late March or early April. As per the Hindu calendar, it falls on the last day on the month of Phalgun, which is a Purnima (or Pooranmashi, Full Moon), and on the first day of Chaitra. It is a celebration also of the Hindu New Year, as Chaitra is the first month of the Hindu Year.
It is also called the Festival of Colour. On the first day, a bonfire is lit at night to signify burning Holika. On the second day, known as Dhulandi, people go around until afternoon throwing coloured powder and water at each other, although the powder stings the eyes.
A special drink called ‘thandai’ or bhang is also consumed sometimes, which actually contains small amounts of marijuana(Cannabis sativa). People invite each other to their houses for feasts and celebrations later in the evening. Rangapanchami occurs a few days later on a Panchami (fifth day of the full moon), marking the end of festivities involving colours.
In Hindu mythology, Hiranyakashipu was the king of demons, and he had been granted a boon by Brahma, which made it almost impossible for him to be killed. The boon was due to his long penance, after which he had demanded that he not be killed “during day or night; inside the home or outside; not on earth or on sky; neither by a man nor an animal; neither by astra nor by shastra”. Consequently, he grew arrogant, and attacked the Heavens and the Earth. He demanded that people stop worshipping gods and start praying to him. But his own son, Prahlad, was a devotee of Lord Vishnu. In spite of several threats from Hiranyakashipu, Prahlad continued offering prayers to Lord Vishnu.
He was poisoned but the poison turned to nectar in his mouth. He was ordered to be trampled by elephants yet remained unharmed. He was put in a room with hungry, poisonous snakes and survived. All of Hiranyakashipu’s attempts to kill his son failed. Finally, he ordered young Prahlad to sit on a pyre on the lap of his sister, Holika, who could not die by fire by virtue of a shawl which would prevent fire affecting the person wearing it. Prahlad readily accepted his father’s orders, and prayed to Vishnu to keep him safe. When the fire started, everyone watched in amazement as the shawl flew from Holika, who then was burnt to death, while Prahlad survived unharmed, after the shawl moved to cover him. The burning of Holika is celebrated as Holi. It is also said that later Lord Vishnu came in the form of a Narasimha (who is half-man and half-lion) and killed Hiranyakashipu at dusk (which was neither day nor night), on the steps of the porch of his house (which was neither inside the house nor outside) by restraining him on his lap (which is neither in the sky nor on the earth) and mauling him with his claws (which are neither astra nor shastra).
In Vrindavan and Mathura, where Lord Krishna grew up, the festival is celebrated for 16 days (until Rangpanchmi in commemoration of the divine love of Radha for Krishna). Lord Krishna is believed to have popularized the festival by playing pranks on the gopis here. Krishna is believed to be complained about his dark colour and Radha’s fair colour to his mother and so decided to apply colour to her face. The celebrations officially usher in spring, the celebrated season of love.
There is another story about the origin of holi. The Kamadeva is God of love. Kama’s body was destroyed when he shot his weapon at Shiva in order to disrupt his penance and help Parvati to marry Shiva. Shiva then opened his third eye, the gaze of which was so powerful that Kama’s body was reduced to ashes. For the sake of Kama’s wife Rati (passion), Shiva restored him, but only as a mental image, representing the true emotional and mental state of love rather than physical lust. The Holi bonfire is believed to be celebrated in commeration of this event.
The Holi Festival looks like a tradition I want to import to grey Germany - although this chap doesn’t look too happy.
Get an even bigger color rush with a big Holi image pool on Flickr.
The Security Council was and still is a good idea - but it no longer reflects the global status. After WW2 the US, Soviet Union, France, Britain and China reflected the world’s powers at that time.
But not today.
India und Brazil have been lobbying hard for a permanent seat - so did Germany and Japan as big spenders for the UN.
Europe is already over represented by France and Britain. I think ONE seat for the whole of the EU would be enough. Africa should also get it’s own permanent seat. Since India and China represented such a huge slice of the population - they also should get a seat each. Although I must say that neither China nor India have been big supporters of international progress - they have been too busy to get their own countries ahead. Although India has sent many troops to international missions.
It would be great progress if this important international forum would reflect the realities of 2008 and not 1950.
More? Wikipedia entry and a BBC discussion if India should get a permanent seat - some nice comments in there.
Most cars waste most of their fuel to move themselves - the passengers are just an add on. Europeans have been for decades great consumers of small cars. Nice to see that India and hopefully China follow that trend.
You don’t need a bigass SUV or Hummer to get around. A small Tata Nano - or any other small car like the Smart - will do the job nicely.
Save precious oil and drive a small car - if you need to drive anyway.
The second part of this great documentary goes back to the great religions and philosophers of India. It shows that the idea of free, spiritual and humanitarian societies is almost as old as humanity itself. We were not all about war, domination and ignorance.
The human spirit was ALSO always about making this a better place for all. Enjoy!
One amazing documentary about India, early human development and culture. Highly insightful! It deals with the first big cities and settlement, as well as the story of the Arians and other early cultures.
More? Some background on the mentioned early cultures Sindhi and Indus Valley.
If you can believe in enlightened pink elephants - you can believe in anything. Spirituality starts in your mind - if you mind can cope with incredible thoughts it can’t cope with incredible truths either.
Open your mind, expand your mind, cultivate your ability to think and imagine new possibilities … maybe then you get enlightened or trampled by an elephant on the way …
Since the mid-nineties Asian movies are conquering the global market. Tales from China and India are big hits with western audiences. India - or better Bollywood has always outproduced it’s American rival, but it took a long time until their products were universally accepted.
From a few ’serious’ movies, most Bollywood productions seem to have only singing, dancing and a lot of Kitsch romance in mind. So it’s not really my kind of stuff. But SOMETIMES I like the music, because it’s obscure at best - or has some excellent classical Indian bits in it. And I love classical Indian music.
So here is a typical pop music style Bollywood song with some typical weird English lyric fragments in it (from the movie "Bombay Talkie" (a short and very weird video excerpt here)):
More "traditional" Bollywood soundtrack (the title music for the flick "Teen Kanya"):
More? YouTube is FULL with that stuff. Here an ‘old school’ scene (Jimmy Hendrix meets Bollywood - I nearly pissed myself) and here a modern scene with the Goddess Aishwarya Rai herself.