This week’s “On the Media” is serious business. It’s all blah blah Earth in peril, blah blah, and I couldn’t be forced to care except that I already do. I live on Earth. And, like many scientists, I value the percieved security of my e-mail communications.
Anyway, there are more immediate concerns, like jailed journalists, how some countries try to suppress you even when you don’t live there, and how Indian movies depict Indians who’ve left.
Okay, so that last one doesn’t fit. But the story called “Indians Abroad” is fun, even with the part about the “last scene from the movie Pirava, in which a blind mother weeps after her son has been killed by the police and her husband has had a mental breakdown.” I’ve had a long day.
This in-house interview about the history of the depictions of Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) in Indian cinema with WNYC reporter Arun Venugopal doesn’t sound like much fun, until you hear Brooke go all mealy-mouthed over the pronunciation of the movies’ names, the giggling about the song “Dum Maro Dum,” and Brooke’s last question, “Last question: Kumar, good for the NRI, bad for the NRI?”
The answer: Great.
And then the interview closes with a clip of Kumar presenting the smokeless bong.
Dum Maro Dum, Brooke. Dum Maro Dum.
[As Venugopal points out, the song title "Dum Maro Dum" translates as "here, have another puff" - though really I prefer the Kronos Quartet's translation: "Take Another Toke."]
This recap was written by Matthew and ‘edited’ in a loosely defined fashion by Kerry.
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