Al-Jazeera English recently broadcast Sari Stories, a documentary about the lives of four village women in the Southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. All former child brides themselves, the women decided to focus the piece on child marriage in their community. What’s unique about this film is that the women were trained to shoot their own footage and interview their friends and family, which adds an intimacy to the piece that is rare.
Jessica Simpson was in Uganda last week filming a documentary called the Price of Beauty. While Simpson was struck by the strong women she met, she was for some reason horrified by the fact that she had to sleep under mosquito netting. The above photo was posted by the singer to her Twitter account along with the message “WTF?!? Do I really have to sleep like this?”
No, Jessica, you don’t have to sleep like that. But it does beat getting malaria.
Shah Rukh Khan, 43, known here as the King of Bollywood, was on his way to Chicago for a parade later Saturday to mark India’s Independence Day when immigration officials at Newark pulled him aside and interrogated him. The star of scores of top-grossing films was released after Indian consular officials vouched for him.
“I was really hassled — perhaps because of my name being Khan,” he said in a text message to reporters in India. “These guys just wouldn’t let me through.”
Aasif Mandvi of the Daily Show plays a swarmy book publisher named Bob Spaulding in the new Sandra Bullock film The Proposal. Mandvi’s character is the third instance I’ve seen recently where a desi is cast in a non-ethnic role: Aziz Ansari’s Tom Haverford on Parks and Recreation and Kal Penn’s Lawrence Kutner being the two others.
It should come as as no surprise that American Idol runner up Adam Lambert considers late Queen frontman Freddie Mercury a musical hero. In an interview with Oprah.com Adam pays tribute to the mustachioed one:
SS: Seems to me you could take over as the lead singer of Queen.
AL: Freddie Mercury is an idol of mine. The quality and the attack and passion in which he’d sing is totally inspirational to me. And, his story. He was living in a time when you couldn’t be as honest and open about your lifestyle. I’m very fortunate to be in 2009, and I kind of feel like in some weird way this is for him and all the other artists who haven’t been able to be real.
Choreographer Nakul Dev Mahajan returned to So You Think You Can Dance last week to choreograph Caitlin and Jason’s performance to (what else?) Jai Ho.
An interesting performance, but not nearly as memorable as Joshua and Katie’s delightful dance to Dhoom Tana last season.
Monica Yunus, a New York-based opera singer and the daughter of Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, was married last weekend. Here’s Monica singing Je Veux Vivre on YouTube.
Michael J. Fox was just on Letterman to shill for his new book. He also spoke about a special that he just taped on happiness that took him to Bhutan. He explained that he visited because of Bhutan’s high rate of Gross National Happiness.
He and Letterman actually talked about Bhutan for quite a long time and showed photos of families that MJF visited while there. Fox said that the high altitude also helped calm his Parkinson’s symptoms and that he was able to go mountain climbing.
Fox also ended up making an unplanned trip to India when he injured his finger mountain climbing, and ended up being sent to a Delhi hospital during Holi. Crazy antics, of course, ensue.
The last time I remember South Asia getting so much time on Letterman was when Ben Kingsley discussed filming Gandhi last summer.
Hopefully I’ll be able to find a video of the appearance for you all tomorrow.
How I Met Your Mother star Alyson Hannigan gave birth to daughter Satyana Denisof yesterday. Celebrity Baby Blog has the details. No word on what inspired the name, which is the Sanskrit word for truth.
At a town hall meeting, President Obama’s answers stood out as a stark snapshot of his efforts to reach China’s youth while not offending its authorities.
Insurgents fired two rockets Monday into a market northeast of Kabul where the head of French forces in Afghanistan was holding a meeting with tribal elders.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd issued an apology for child migrant programs that forcibly brought an estimated 150,000 British youngsters to the Commonwealth.
A pickup truck laden with explosives blew up in front of a police station in an area that has become the focal point for militant retaliation against a recent army offensive.
